Unit

We are queer and our work is grounded in everyday realities of our community. We are certain that solidarity within and beyond queer community is the key for any real change to happen. We work for and with journalists in 10 countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Journalism is a socially engaged work, hence we ally with activists and advocates who work with LGBTIQ+ issues. With educational, journalistic and research projects, we facilitate discussion about queer issues on the national level and beyond.

Initiated by the journalist Ali Feruz (Novaya Gazeta) in 2018, Unit was developed by n-ost, a network for border crossing journalism based in Berlin. Our main focus and activities include:

• Support for journalistic publications on LGBTIQ+ issues in the project countries

• Cross border collaborative projects

• Community building among journalists, editors, and human rights activists — online and during personal meetings conducted in the region.

We aim to support the production of high quality journalistic publications that fight clichéd, stereotypical and homophobic representation of queer community. We support journalists with a strong interest in queer journalism without regard to their previous experience in covering LGBTIQ+ topics. We will provide them with guidance, methods and the resources of our network.