The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is committed to supporting equality, diversity and inclusion. On 16 June, RBGE staff, students, volunteers and their supporters will be marching through Edinburgh under our banner ‘Celebrating Plant and Human Diversity’ as part of Edinburgh Pride 2018.

This year the Botanics is showing its support for diversity by having a ‘Pride Tree’ between Wed 13th and 22nd June. You can find it just outside the John Hope Gateway building main entrance to the Garden.

Tell us your pride story or what Pride and LGBTQ+ people in society mean to you. Please write your thoughts on the material provided and pop it in the handy box provided. Messages will be added to the tree each day – we would love to see our Pride Tree covered in your stories, hopes, aspirations and experiences.

Please take photos while you’re at the tree and tag them on social media with #botanicspride

Happy Pride!

The Botanics LGBTI+ Network

Resources

https://www.lgbthealth.org.uk/

Based in Scotland, LGBT Health ‘Provides support, services and information to improve health and wellbeing, reduce social isolation and stimulate community development and volunteering.’ They have a helpline if you would like information or emotional support on a wide range of LGBT+ issues.

For those under 25, https://www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/ provides a service tailored to the needs of younger LGBT people and also operates a hotline as well as online chat based support.

https://www.ditchthelabel.org/ally-lgbt/

Pride is about being aware of the struggles that the LGBT+ community face and how far we’ve come – but you don’t need to be part of the LGBT+ community to get involved – we welcome straight ‘allies’ who will stand beside us in our fight for equality and share in our celebrations of diversity and progress.