With support from the Council of Europe’s Intercultural Cities (ICC) Programme’s grant scheme, a new training manual is equipping public institutions with concrete tools to develop LGBTI+ intercultural competences, marking a milestone in the practical application of the Council of Europe's inclusion approach to help professionals turn rights into concrete everyday experiences of safety, equity, and belonging for LGBTI+ people.
Produced through the Rainbow Connections Project, a collaboration between Oeiras (Portugal) and Leeds (United Kingdom)—both ICC network members—the LGBTI+ Intercultural Competences Training Manual responds to the persistent gap between legal frameworks and lived equality for LGBTI+ communities in Europe. While progressive laws exist in both countries, social exclusion and discrimination remain a daily reality for many.
Funded by an ICC Inter-City Grant 2025, this resource, available in two languages, is designed as an instrument for sustained organisational change. It is the result of a highly participative process, including international exchanges, local training, and cross-city learning visits, and brings together real-life perspectives from city staff and community partners.
Two flexible training models are detailed: a 12-hour in-depth path for contexts where intercultural inclusion is emerging (Oeiras model), and a 3-hour consolidated workshop used in Leeds. Both are adaptable and designed to foster real organisational change, catalysing more inclusive, responsive public services for all.
The manual stands out by leveraging non-formal education, active participation, and critical analysis, equipping professionals to recognise institutional biases and address the everyday challenges faced by LGBTI+ people. Alongside practical exercises, legal and conceptual frameworks from the Council of Europe ground the content, ensuring transferability across diverse European contexts.
Those resources take into account the recently adopted Committee of Minsters Recommendation on Equal Rights for Intersex Persons, as well as the ICC Manual for the design of a training course on intercultural competence and the guide on Identifying and Preventing Systemic Discrimination at the Local Level
Crucially, the manual values the role of LGBTI+ staff networks as drivers of internal transformation, providing guidance for creating safe, participatory spaces and amplifying minority voices within local government settings.
This initiative not only strengthens local responses to discrimination and exclusion but also illustrates the ripple effect of the ICC’s principles in action—moving beyond legislation to foster sustainable, lived equality.
As mentioned in the manual,
Rainbow Connections demonstrated that LGBTI+ inclusion depends not only on policies or formal commitments, but also on the institutional capacity to listen, to integrate, and to value lived experience. Interculturality, as a skill and as an organisational model, requires dialogue, continuity, and internal structures that ensure the participation of those who experience inequalities.
The manual is available to all ICC members and interested municipalities in English and Portuguese.
