Spotlight on: Sara and Steeve, celebrating Pride Month 2021

For Pride Month 2021, we highlighted two of our guardians who are volunteering to create a more equal and fairer society for LGBTQ+ communities.

Read more from our south east London guardian Sara who’s providing mentorship and support to LGBTQ+ people looking to move to the UK with the lesbian and gay immigration group. And our Oxford guardian, Steeve, who volunteers with ReportOUT, a global human rights organisation for sexual and gender minorities.

Sara, UK lesbian and gay immigration group

From our south east London guardian, Sara

I volunteer with the UK lesbian & gay immigration group. We assess immigration cases and then see how we can help – legally but also through primary care. We provide mentorship to new immigrants as well. There’s a lot of pressure when you are LGBT so we try to help them, listen to them and support them wherever we can and we have a lot of success in doing so.

In my role, I deal with first time immigration enquiries and am currently in contact with around 20 people. I’ll help them do the assessment, check in how they’re doing mentally, and if they need food, need rehousing or any other primary needs. We’ve recently started working with Olio too for this purpose.

I can really see the impact as I’ve been able to help so many people. I can spend time with more people and being able to see their relief first hand from having support is incredible.

Steeve, ReportOUT

From our Oxford guardian, Steeve

The organisation report on the lives of different LGBTQIA+ people around the world and use activism to speak up about LGBTQIA+ issues… they also train people to be activists, run online courses on how to be vocal and active in your community, and they are launching an initiative called ‘Out Academy’.

One of my roles has been to interview people for a podcast and collect stories from activists from different place. Recently I have interviewed people in the Caiman Islands and in Barbados, and in the past I’ve talked with a gay man from Egypt and a trans man from Russia. When you do this kind of work we realise how lucky we are. I am now and equality champion within the organisation so I have been working on a sustainability policy.

I’m also an electronic musician and I recorded some videos and music for Pride events that were online too.

Doing this volunteering had also inspired me so much that I am now rerouting my career!

Read more stories from our guardians on how living with Dot Dot Dot has given them the freedom and flexibility to pursue their goals.