Meeting Dates for Unity Plymouth at the Council House. www.unityplymouth.co.uk

26^th June 2010

31^st July 2010

21^st August 2010

25^th Setember  2010

30^th October 2010

27^th November 2010

18^th December 2010

Representatives/ Councillors are invited from various organisations. If you have an issue and would like it to be addressed then please tell us

Please feel free to attend. Bring your family and friends. All meetings are FREE to all members of the Communities.

Recreational facilities for children are provided.

Cultural food is provided  FREE by volunteers.

Venue- Council House next to Civic centre, City Centre Plymouth. All Meetings are 1.00-5.00pm.

If  you need further information please call:

Ikenna  07868834898

Chaz  07950957909

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU!

Since the dissolution of the Plymouth Anti Racism Task Force (ARTF) in April 2004 Fata He have continued to support a number of individuals and groups who deliver services to B&ME communities including the Plymouth Gypsy community.

As the recognised sub-regional B&ME infrastructure hub for Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay, Fata He with its partner B&ME organisations represents the B&ME Home Office funded Change Up infrastructure body in this sub region. Fata He received a small amount of funding in 2005 from the Change Up Early Spend programme to develop its capacity to take up position as lead B&ME organisation for the sub region.

The role of Fata He as lead B&ME sub regional infrastructure hub will be to:

Work closely with mainstream organisations to develop best practice and act in a supporting and advisory capacity in improving service access and provision for its excluded beneficiaries

Provide organisational development support to B&ME voluntary, community and business sector groups to help them grow and nurture their long term development

Develop a range of specialist provision through 4 sub regional locally based Forums and a sub regional representative Forum which meets the needs of B&ME people throughout the sub regional area.

Fata He plan to develop their services to fill identified gaps in the market. In essence we will develop a niche market of specialist services to add value to existing provision in the sub region. In order to make Fata He sustainable in the longer term, strands of delivery will be developed under four key areas:

B&ME Capacity Building

B&ME Social Enterprise Development

Asset Management

Consultancy and Training

In addition to the above and as previously highlighted we will develop, support and facilitate a sub regional infrastructure representative B&ME hub through the establishment of four local B&ME Forums in which Fata He will facilitate the exchange of information, provide networking and development opportunities for individuals and the Forum as a whole.

Our Vision is to
‘Build a sustainable, vibrant and cohesive B&ME voluntary and community sector in Devon, Cornwall, Plymouth and Torbay through a number of strong, innovative, proactive and representational B&ME Forums and a sub regional infrastructure hub’

Through a facilitating and supportive approach enable the B&ME voluntary and community sector to play its full part in the delivery of local projects and services, participate in the local implementation of social and economic regeneration strategies and also to tackle in partnership the problems of social exclusion in B&ME communities.

Equal Opportunities Statement

Introduction

Fata he believes in equal opportunities for all people in our community and we try and put our policy into practice in everything we do. We aim to deal fairly, openly and honestly with people applying for jobs, our Directors, employees, and clients who use our services.

Fata He was created to help change the previous lack of opportunities for people in our area to benefit from and to participate in the social and economic regeneration of the area. We are particularly dedicated to ensuring that all sections of the community are able to participate in and benefit from Fata He activities and we take care to ensure that there are no hidden barriers which might prevent this.

Fata He also understands that because everyone is different, there is a need for its workforce and client base to reflect and be representative of the community it serves. We are dedicated to enabling people to access the jobs and economic improvements which we might help to create and support in our business and in all our activities, either in our sole name or in partnership with others.

Aims

As a community based social enterprise organisation, any black or ethnic minority individual living in, having a business in, or being a community organisation in our catchment area, can become upon invitation a director of our Management Board, entitled to attend meetings and vote, and to help in our activities.

Fata He is a social enterprise established to benefit black and ethnic minority groups, business, families, and individuals although no one from the wider community would be excluded. We are committed to helping with the social and economic regeneration of our area and the wider areas of the city, and actively attempt to improve opportunities for all people so that they can participate in all Fata He activities. We aim to improve the social, economic, health, quality of life and opportunities for all people in our community.

Fata He will not unfairly discriminate (directly or indirectly) against anyone because of, for example their race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, sex, sexuality, age, ability or disability, education, literacy, religion (or non-religion), political activity, trade union activity, marital status, domestic situations, being HIV positive, and whether people are in or applying for full-time, part-time or job share work. (These are examples only. Other forms of discrimination will be tackled whenever they.

http://www.fatahe.com/index.aspx

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http://www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk/

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“To make the City of Plymouth an area where LGB/T people and Communities can live, work and celebrate life free from discrimination and Prejudice.”

Objectives

1. To work in the Plymouth area for the benefit of LGBT communities.
2. To be a collective voice for the LGBT communities.
3. To provide environments where LGBT individuals can meet for support and social activities.
4. To actively promote equality in services for LGBT people by influencing and responding to change in the wider community.
5. To establish Plymouth Pride Forum as an organisation which will ensure effective communication, information and publicity for members and wider LGBT communities.
6. To actively promote LGBT issues, including equality and other rights.

http://www.plymouthprideforum.org.uk/index.html

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http://www.intercomtrust.org.uk/portal.htm

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An uneasy mix of personal prejudice and intellectual anxiety has allowed science to be misused to justify a philosophy of prejudice towards the gay and lesbian communities around the globe.   The reasoning is that from a Darwinian perspective homosexuality seems to be a clear non-starter.  Only heterosexual relationships can be successful in evolutionary terms.  Anything else means that the genes (the component parts of the DNA) of the parties involved do not survive their death.  They cannot therefore influence the course of future evolution. The antithesis of this untested notion is that since homosexuality patently does exist, it must have an evolutionary advantage.  This notion is seldom voiced by such social conservatives.  The modern development of Darwinian Theory lays in currently accepted and developing genetic theories.  These stress the existence of ‘the selfish gene’.  Thus genes only create the machines called living organisms so as to ensure their (the genes) survival into the future at all costs.

A new book by Bruce Bagemihl called “Animal Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity” is effectively a compendium of animal homosexuality which profiles over 450 species.  Bagemihl spent 10 years searching carefully through the scientific literature.  He was unearthing documented cases of same sex encounters with apparent sexual significance.  He contacted scores of researchers to add detail not included in published papers. “Most are mammals and birds” says Bagemihl, “but perhaps only because I didn’t have time to go further”.  Most scientific readers take exception to one chapter in which he presents his own highly speculative alternatives to Darwinian evolutionary theory.  But a growing band of scientific researchers are openly welcoming his work.  It’s scale and depth are apparently unassailable “The beauty of the book is all that data,” says one evolutionary biologist from Oxford University.

Bagemihl stresses that animal homosexuality is not a single, uniform phenomenon.  His mission is to document its sheer diversity: “same sex behaviour in animals exhibits every conceivable variation”.  He documents, in about a quarter of cases, signs of  “affectionate” behaviour.  These activities do not involve direct genital contact but “nevertheless have clear sexual or erotic overtones”.  Male giraffes for instance indulge in prolonged bouts of affectionate “necking”, often followed by mounting and culminating in apparent organism.

“Nearly every type of same-sex activity among humans has its counterpart in animals” he concludes.   What seems undeniable is that homosexual behaviour is as “natural” as heterosexual behaviour.  Yet despite being so common it is far from common knowledge, even among scientists.  “Although the first reports of homosexual behaviour were published 75 years ago,” says Paul Vassey of Concordia University in Montreal; “virtually every major introductory text in primatology (the study of primate monkeys such as our closest relatives; chimpanzees and bonobos) fails to even mention its existence”.  On the face of it, sociobiological theory says it can’t happen”.  However another primatologist, Robin Dunbar, says “If you are looking for homosexual activity in vast quantities, forget humans, its bonobos (or pygmy chimpanzees) you want.  It’s scandalous.” He chuckles. “They’ll have sex with anyone never mind the sex or age”.  An observer doesn’t have to wait long to notice females locked into a face to face embrace all the better to indulge in mutual genital rubbing, or spy males glued together via open-mouthed kisses with plentiful mutual tongue stimulation. 

All this may represent the tip of the iceberg as the truth is that even in long term field studies of many species, sexual behaviour is rarely observed.  Heterosexual mating between cheetahs, for instance, has been recorded only five times in the wild.  To compound the difficulties, in many species, males and females look alike, at least to the human eye.  King penguins in Edinburgh Zoo at the beginning of the 1900′s went through a number of embarrassing name changes as their keepers realised that sexual behaviour is no fool proof clue to biological sex.

Currently the new DNA testing technology is exposing unconventional social set-ups among other identical looking birds.  A study of Roseate Terns in the USA has found that 12% of nests are tended by lesbian terns, who share in the incubation of 3 or 4 eggs – two is the norm for heterosexual couples.  The females fertilise their eggs through a quick fling with paired and breeding males, but many have remained faithful to another female through the five years of the on going study.  However as only one chick usually survives to adulthood it seems that one of the lesbian partners seems to have zero success in genetic terms.  But what if the birds are related?  The researchers are now using DNA fingerprinting to discover whether the partners in female pairs are sometimes mothers, daughters, aunts or nieces or sisters.  Could it be that the lesbian strategy isn’t second best at all?  “There is certainly more going on here than meets the eye” says one of the researchers cautiously.

Mac McCorry (with respect and thanks to New Scientist)

http://www.intercomtrust.org.uk/

The Lesbian and Gay Foundation provides more direct services and resources to more lesbian, gay and bisexual people than any other charity of its kind in the UK.

We deliver first class and accessible community, health and support services

We provide high quality and accurate information and advice, including a range of leaflets and booklets, a monthly magazine.

We help influence public policy and opinion on LGBT issues by liaising with leaders in education, religion and politics, and by involvement in events such as the LGBT Health Summit.

http://www.lgf.org.uk/

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