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Rainbow Bonds Project: A Strategy to Combat Involuntary Loneliness
LGBTQIA+ in Italy”, funded with funds from the Waldensian Church's Eight per Thousand.
Project Code: OPM/2024/46030 – Ordinary Call for Proposals 2024
Arcigay National LGBTI Association is the promoter of the “RAINBOW BONDS” project – Strategy
to combat the involuntary loneliness of LGBTQIA+ people in Italy, funded under
of the 2024 Waldensian Church Eight per Thousand Funds Call. With this project Arcigay intends
intervene on the complex and stratified phenomenon of involuntary solitudes that cross the
life of many LGBTQIA+ people, recognizing it as the result of social, cultural and
economic sectors still strongly marked by inequality and discrimination. Loneliness
involuntary represents in fact a transversal condition, which can manifest itself in age, contexts and
different situations, and which profoundly affects individual well-being, mental health and
on the possibility of building meaningful relationships and support networks.
Despite progress in terms of visibility and recognition of rights, LGBTQIA+ people
continue to experience forms of exclusion that fuel social isolation and fragility
relational. Discrimination and stigma, both external and internalized, produce stress, anxiety and
insecurity, hindering full participation in social and community life. The dynamics
family members often represent a further factor of vulnerability, with experiences of rejection or
alienation that deprives people of essential support networks. Added to this are
economic barriers, difficulties in accessing services – particularly mental health services – and
discrimination in the workplace, which increases the risk of social and economic isolation.
Even the use of social media, while offering opportunities for contact, can accentuate forms of
loneliness, especially among younger people, replacing human contact and generating
feelings of inadequacy.
Rainbow Bonds was born from the awareness that involuntary loneliness in the population
LGBTQIA+ is not an individual condition, but a structural phenomenon that requires answers
collective, specific skills and inclusive approaches. The project aims to strengthen the role of
Arcigay as a space for welcome, relationships and care, valorising volunteering and the people who
They operate in community services as key players in combating isolation. The project idea is
to intervene on multiple levels: educational, relational and territorial, building shared tools
and replicable practices that allow us to read, intercept and deal with involuntary loneliness
in different local contexts.
The general objective of the project is to contribute to the reduction of involuntary loneliness in
LGBTQIA+ community, through increasing the skills of volunteers and the
spreading greater awareness of emerging needs, encouraging the birth of new ones
support, mutual aid and socialization interventions. The project also intends to promote a
culture of inclusion and care, capable of recognizing the plurality of LGBTQIA+ experiences and
to respond intersectionally to different forms of vulnerability.
The specific objectives of Rainbow Bonds are: to increase knowledge of the dynamics
psychosocial issues related to involuntary LGBTQIA+ loneliness; strengthening people's skills
volunteers and workers in the services of the Arcigay committees, providing theoretical and practical tools for
reception and support; promote the planning of territorial actions capable of generating
relationships, participation and inclusion; promoting dialogue and comparison between different experiences,
enhancing networking with associative, institutional, and community stakeholders.
The project includes a structured training path, which combines online and in-person moments,
aimed at 60 volunteers from Arcigay committees across the country.
Through non-formal education methodologies, workshops and group work, people
participants will be accompanied in reading the needs of their territories and in building
of concrete and sustainable responses. To complete the process, Rainbow Bonds provides for the
implementation of three dissemination events in different territorial contexts, aimed at
awareness raising, community involvement and dissemination of operational guidelines
collected in a digital handbook. Due to its structure and national nature
of the promoting association, Rainbow Bonds is configured as an intervention capable of generating
widespread impact, helping to strengthen bonds, skills and practices to combat loneliness
involuntary discrimination of LGBTQIA+ people in Italy.
[DOWNLOAD THE PROJECT HANDBOOK HERE]
VADEMECUM RAINBOW BONDS