Bendigo Pride Festival by Bendigo Queer Film Festival

The project will work with exisiting community organisations to create a Bendigo Pride Week Festival. The Festival will promote diversity and inclusion across the region, in addition to creating wider visibility and acceptance of the LGBTI community. The Bendigo Pride Festival will work with the Bendigo Queer Film Festival Commitee to develop a program of events and activities to include youth focused events, lectures, culture, arts and film. The festival will develop an engagement strategy to work with local LGBTI Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as well as trans and gender diverse communities. These communities are currently under represented.

We want to create a city that we can live, work and thrive in. We understand that many LGBTI people face added pressures living in regional Victoria. LGBTI people develop poorer mental health and well-being outcomes compared to our heterosexual peers. Social isolation is a key factor that adds to these issues. A pride week festival will celebrate the diversity and culture of LGBTI community and provide safe places for the community to meet a connect with peers and local health and wellbeing services. Our emphasis will be on inclusion and youth informed activities.