Play the Game supports World Outgames 2009

Together with International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA) Play the Game has given its full support on cooperation with World Outgames 2009, a sports, culture and human rights event to be held in Copenhagen from July 25 to 2 August 2009.

The primary target groups of World Outgames are lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people (LGBT) from all over the world, though all activities and events are open to everyone.

In Play the Game’s support for the upcoming event, director Jens Sejer Andersen describes World Outgames as “a great opportunity to promote cultural diversity, freedom and equal opportunity”.

Three programme pillars
World Outgames is built on three equally important pillars: sports, culture and human rights, and in the sports domain there are 38 sports disciplines for participants to choose from.

The biggest event in the cultural domain is OutCities, an invitation to eight international cities to use public space in the city centre to present an arts and culture programme.

The international human rights conference will focus on ten professional, cultural and political topics concerning the LGBT community and will be held in Denmark’s Radio Concert Hall and the IT University.

Building up to 2009
The ambition of World Outgames 2009 is to make the event a large public manifestation of freedom for all, regardless of sex, age, cultural background or sexual orientation.

The total budget of World Outgames is 64 million Danish kroner (approx. 8.2 million euro) of which Copenhagen’s Municipality has already granted the first 23 million Danish kroner (approx. 3.1 million euro).

Furthermore, World Outgames has been awarded a grant of more than 6 million Danish kroner (approx. 805,000 euro) from the national Marketing Fund administered by the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs.

The grant is earmarked to support the marketing activities, which are expected to bring nearly 20,000 foreign visitors to Copenhagen next year.

“This grant creates the absolute best condition for us to tell the great story about World Outgames to our international target audience”, says Uffe Elbæk, CEO of World Outgames 2009.

First keynote speaker found
As the first registered keynote speaker at the conference part of World Outgames, Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma has accepted to speak at the LGBT Human Rights Conference. Indian born Mr. Sharma will be speaking in a plenary about LGBT Human Rights in Asia and the South Pacific.

Mr. Sharma is currently touring the world with his debut film “A Jihad for Love”, a daring testimony documenting that homosexuality and Islam can and do coexist. "A Jihad for Love" is the world’s first feature documentary to explore the complex global intersections between Islam and homosexuality and has received widespread acclaim and won several awards.

Relevant links:

• Copenhagen 2009 World Outgames official homepage
• ISCA
• Profile of Parvez Sharma on Wikipedia