Twenty twenty has been a year like no other, apart from the elephant in the room, AKA Coronavirus, we've seen a number of world events including uprisings standing against racism, pro-abortion demostrations, climate-conscious ones and many others, in most of these events people used flags and other graphic elements to identify their cause and make people relate to it. Flags play an important role in identity, they can have a variety of meanings and intentions for bad and for good, resistance, union, and support are often related to them. This year some members of the LGBTQ+ community in the UK felt robbed, that their number one symbol was kidnnaped, the rainbow flag became the NHS support flag, while some of us used humour as a response to it, some other people were appalled with the missuage to the flag and the reappropiation of such.
Having said that we thought, "if they are taking one off from us, we will create another one".
Last year we were invited by Metro Charity to coordinate a workshop that addressed 'HIV: Society and Stigma', we proposed to run a workshop on 'flag making' particularly, inviting the participants to create their unique HIV+ pride flag.
The participants created their own flag, followed by an explanation of why they chose those materials, colours and symbolisms. The workshop was originally
created for Spanish speakers but it was replicated for the Portuguese and Polish speaker community.
We will be working on a new series of workshops due in November 2020, this time, it will be delivered via Zoom which can lead to participants feeling more comfortable by being at home. We are looking forward to see the results of this year's workshop. Metro Charity is an equality and diversity charity providing health, community and youth services in England.