Belfast Pride has been awarded a Tesco Community Grant to help fund its 2023 festival this July.
Belfast Pride, which has been operating since 1991 and is now the biggest LGBTQIA+ festival on the island of Ireland, has received a £1,500 grant from the supermarket giant.
Tesco’s Community Grant scheme uses the money raised from the levy on carrier bags to fund projects across the UK that aim to improve the well-being of people in its local community.
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The money granted to Belfast Pride from Tesco will be used to improve its festival seating and accessibility to make it inclusive for everyone and to also offer flexible volunteering opportunities.
John O'Doherty, Co-Chair at Belfast Pride said: "We are extremely grateful to Tesco for providing us with this funding to help deliver our festival to the LGBTQIA+ community in Northern Ireland and beyond.
"Belfast Pride is entirely volunteer led and we want to develop and deliver flexible volunteering opportunities that allow people to participate who may not have been able to in the past.
"For our 2023 Festival we want to provide a wide variety of volunteering opportunities to make our festival and organisation as accessible and inclusive as possible including home-based, seated, and low-pressure roles with appropriate volunteer expenses covered and any necessary equipment or aids provided."
The LGBTQIA+ organisation is also aiming to make its official Belfast Pride Festival Guide fully accessible and available with appropriately sized text, in an online and audio version too.
Cara McCann Co-Chair at Belfast Pride added: "At Belfast Pride we are always striving to make our festival as accessible as possible.
"We want to support as many people as possible with access needs to make meaningful contributions to the delivery of the festival as part of Team Pride. We have worked hard to ensure where possible we can provide step-free access to our events and accessible viewing and seating.
"With the support received from Tesco we can continue to build on this work by improving seating, increasing the availability of sign-language interpreters, and increasing the staff support available for those with accessibility needs across our festival."
Tesco works in partnership with Groundwork to deliver its Community Grant funding scheme, which provides grants to thousands of local projects in communities across the UK, all voted on by customers in-store.
Tony McElroy, Tesco’s Community Manager for Northern Ireland, said: "It’s fantastic to see the staff and volunteers at Belfast Pride showing such commitment to improving their festival and making it inclusive for everyone.
"It’s organisations like Belfast Pride why our Tesco Community Grants exist as it shows first-hand how our grants can positively impact local communities."
To find out more about Tesco Community Grants see here and to find out more about Belfast Pride, see here
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