THE Global Interfaith Commission for LGBT Lives is in search of a project director to guide its recent course for religious leaders on sexuality and gender issues, in partnership with Regent’s Park College, in Oxford, it’s announced today.
The Commission, overseen and managed by the Ozanne Foundation (News, 13 April 2018), was launched in 2020 to guard LGBT+ people from harm in religious settings. It campaigns for an end to violence and criminalisation, and seeks a world ban on conversion therapy.
Its recent series of residential summer courses is being funded by a grant of about £20,000 from the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), which is currently being finalised. Annual accounts from the Ozanne Foundation show that the FCDO has already issued two grants to the charity since 2021, totalling £187,500, to fund previous work for the Commission.
The commercial for a director is published within the Church Times today. The contract duration is three years and 7 months, part-time, with a salary of £16,260.
The aim of the brand new course, it says, is “to extend the variety of senior religious leaders advocating to cut back the violence and discrimination of LGBT+ people and to support the decriminalisation of anti-LGBT+ laws of their home countries”.
The project, which, it says, shall be “scalable to satisfy demand” and conducted in “a secure private forum”, is to be delivered in partnership with the University of Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education.
Regent’s Park College, a everlasting private hall of the University, admits undergraduate and graduate students of various subjects, and trains Baptist ministers. A spokesperson for the College said: “We are looking forward to working with Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education to deliver this revolutionary programme of engagement, education, and empowerment.”
Jayne Ozanne, an LGBT campaigner, a General Synod member, and a founding director of the Ozanne Foundation, said: “I’m thrilled that Regent’s Park College has agreed to tackle this project with support from the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University, as it should provide an enduring legacy for the Global Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives.
“The university is one of the crucial prestigious places of learning on the earth, and as such will provide reassurance to spiritual leaders of all faiths of the course’s content in addition to making a positive learning environment to debate matters referring to sexuality and gender identity.
“At this stage we’re keen to discover a project director who may have a novel opportunity to deliver this pioneering programme alongside conducting further research.”
