A Rotary club in north-west England is making plans to stage a ground-breaking event in the town.
Silloth Rotary, which is a town located 22 miles west of Carlisle, is hatching plans to host the first ever Rotary Pride.
Pride parades have become a colourful feature of towns and cities across the world celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender culture and pride.
Most take place in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.
Now Silloth, which has a population of just under 3,000, wants to show how diversity and acceptance in small, rural communities is a very important issue.
Rotary is about helping and supporting communities throughout the world, and this will be a great addition to help its peace efforts promoting acceptance,”
“A lot of time, people in smaller communities struggle to openly be who they are,” said Owen Martin, the 28-year-old President of Rotary Silloth, and chair of the pride committee.
“Due to be scared of repercussions and victimisations, in 2018 we should not have this stigma attached anywhere in the world.”
A venue or a precise date is yet to be agreed.
This will be one of the smallest communities to host a Pride parade, and Owen believes this could also be the first one ever organised by a Rotary club.
“Rotary is about helping and supporting communities throughout the world, and this will be a great addition to help its peace efforts promoting acceptance,” added Owen.
The event will be family-centred, with a parade, entertainment, funfair and a history zone where visitors can share their stories and have them recorded for an archive.
Owen added: “After just coming out myself, a few friends came up with the idea of a Pride event in Silloth.
“Having struggled to come out for so long, I thought it would be a great opportunity to highlight how accepting smaller communities are to diversity.
“Unfortunately, smaller communities have a stigma attached to them as being stuck in the dark ages and being not the most politically-correct places.
“I believed this too for a long time, but that is not the case.
“People in Silloth have been an amazing support for me and others in the town.”
