Philly Pride held its 25th annual Parade and Festival on Sunday. Over 160 groups, organizations and vendors were present at the festival, which had over 10 thousand attendees. Pride organizers predicted this year would have a record turnout.
Among the organizations present was Galaei, an organization that calls itself the home of the Philadelphia lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Latino.
Karla Diaz is the Youth Education Coordinator at Galaei, which is involved in after school programs such as RAVE, Reaching Adolescents Via Education. Currently the program is available in 13 schools across the city. The workshops discuss bullying, sexuality and LGBTQ sensitivity among other topics.
“This year we’ve had a lot of young people looking to connect with those resources that we have,” Diaz said.
Diaz credits the success of the program to the lack of other organizations catering directly to the Latino LGBTQ community in Philadelphia.
The Latino LGBT community in Philadelphia is often undeserved in terms of health services and entertainment Diaz points out, however the 18th annual Alternative Prom is coming up, a night for LGBT youth to come and have a prom night without prejudice. This year, the theme is Las Vegas.
The Alternative Prom will be on June 21, in Houston Hall at the University of Pennsylvania.
This June 12 through June 15 will be the first time a Latino group with Spanish speaking services will be attending the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference, a meeting about educating providers on Transgender care.
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