Increasing social acceptance of LGBTIQ people in CEE
Founded in 2013 in Vienna, Austria, East meets West is a network of LGBTIQ professionals and their allies from Western & (primarily) Eastern Europe. East meets West facilitates the exchange of ideas, the sharing of best practices and generates mutual inspiration to improve the social acceptance of LGBTIQ people in the different countries. East meets West is the facilitator of awareness on LGBTIQ businesses and that LGBTIQ people can be successful entrepreneurs and become role models inside and outside the LGBTIQ community. East meets West has also a catalyst function in the LGBTIQ organisational ecosystem by connecting NGOs, diplomatic representatives, officials, corporate players, entrepreneurs and variety of other inspiring personalities. Our East meets West 'signature event' is the annual conference.
The Region
The East meets West home region is Central & Eastern Europe. The countries of our network include Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia, Romania and Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Lithuania and Latvia. But we go even further and develop new contacts further east, in Armenia and Tajikistan (to start with). Read our 2023 Pages, the summary of the most important 2022 LGBTIQ happenings in our region.
Our Work
We educate wide public on the Economical impact of LGBTIQ Diversity & Inclusion. We help LGBTIQ business owners to grow and discover new business opportunities through corporate supplier diversity programs and national / international networking. Having the hands-on experience in running an LGBTIQ ERG, we connect Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) on national and international level. Every year, our network gets together at our signature event, our yearly International conference.
Human Rights
We keep repeating LGBTIQ rights are human rights! COVID19 pandemic is not the only challenge we face. Just think about the officially supported (even organised) in some CEE countries the hateful actions against our community or the hypocritical policies propagating fake and discriminatory values. Although we know such opportunistic movements will eventually explode in the face of their promoters, it is important we keep the international attention on such inhuman situations and actively help local communities.
Our Supporting Partners
Our work is recognised by many organisations, corporates and diplomatic missions. They support our work and mainly organising the International East meets West Conferences.
(List of supporting partners 2014 -2023)
To maximise our impact, we continuously enhance our co-operations with external partners like Chambers of Commerce and EU Institutions. We are proud founding partner of the European LGBTIQ Chamber of Commerce (EGLCC) and one of the European affiliates of the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce® (NGLCC).
