Anti-bullying charity reports 95 percent success in improving pupils’ LGBT views

Diversity Role Models, a charity launched last year to tackle homophobic bullying in schools, announced today 94.5 percent of students who took part in a workshop with a positive role model said they would treat LGBT people better as a result.

The charity has held workshops for a thousand pupils in eight schools so far this year to encourage pupils to see that being gay or transgender does not mean a person should be feared or bullied, and said written feedback given by the students showed the workshops were having an effect.

Similarly, 91 percent of students filling in the feedback questionnaires after a workshop said they would try to use the word ‘gay’ in a pejorative way less often in future.

Suran Dickson, the Chief Executive of Diversity Role Models, told PinkNews.co.uk the number of students who said they would stop being friends with someone who came out to them dropped from 50 percent at the start of a workshop to 2 percent at the end.

Students had been impressed with the honesty of the charity’s role models and the charity is actively seeking donations to secure further workshops.

Ms Dickson told PinkNews.co.uk: “The response from young people to our workshops has been better than I could have imagined.  Read More