Baroness Sal Brinton, ALDE Party Vice President and member of the UK’s House of Lords, joins the Rainbow Platform’s as an Ambassador for diversity and equality.

The Rainbow Platform’s Diversity Academy session took place on 18-19 August in Kraków, Poland, gathering young leaders to discuss and plan ways of promoting diversity within liberal organisations and parties in the European Union.

The meeting was specifically focused on engagement, recruitment and auto-resilience while conducting diversity initiatives with trainers from the Liberal Democrats, one of ALDE Party’s member parties in the UK, David Chalmers and Candy Piercy who led the workshops.

Rainbow Platform Academy continues!

We've gathered in Krakow with many liberal changemakers to discuss the important topic of engagement and resilience. Thanks to the participants and our amazing trainers from @LibDems this session turned out to be both inspiring and productive. pic.twitter.com/VRjjxBltTv

— Rainbow Platform (@RainbowP_EU) August 21, 2022

The Platform aims to elevate LGBTQI+ voices by creating role models who can inspire political engagement and change. During the Kraków meeting, the group of Rainbow Platform Ambassadors has been joined by Sal Brinton, member of UK House of Lords and ALDE Party Vice President. Baroness Brinton, considered pioneer of the fight for equality, emphasised in her remarks that the understanding of barriers the LGBTQI+ communities face not only to engage into politics but to have an ordinary life is key to modern politics.

“Representation goes to the heart of politics. If we do not look and sound like the communities we are trying to represent it is much harder to understand what barriers they face in having an ordinary life. It matters, it really does,” she declared.

"Representation goes to the heart of politics."

Our ambassador, Baroness @SalBrinton is a member of the HOL for the @LibDems, and has been fighting for equality ever since getting elected. She is a true role model for us, a pioneer in liberal politics. Watch her testimony video! pic.twitter.com/bKRmDj0NpP

— Rainbow Platform (@RainbowP_EU) August 25, 2022

The Rainbow Platform project is a cross-institutional initiative aiming to increase the amount of LGBTQI+ leadership in the political arena. Its Diversity Academy is being supported by the European Liberal Forum.

With the Kraków meeting being a second session of the Academy, the Rainbow Platform plans to organise the upcoming meeting in Budapest.