Purple Friday is a well-known day but still many people don’t know about it. A brief explanation of Purple Friday is that it is a day in which students, teachers and the school or university can show their solidarity towards homosexuals, bisexuals, lesbians, transgenders, and intersex persons by wearing the color purple.

To our greatest pleasure, Breda University of applied sciences is participating not only for one day but the whole week starting from the 6th of December until the 10th of December.  During this extended Purple week, the BUas community is organizing many activities on all sides of diversity and inclusion. This is a way of raising awareness for this topic.

A few of the activities included the HUB radio addressing the topic of diversity during the BUas plus radio show. On Thursday 9th of December at 20:00 there will be a conversation about LGBTQ+ problems and awareness about the problems in the community and outside of the community. On Friday the 10th of December there will be a BUas Instagram account takeover by the LGBTQ+ club. The LGBTQ+ club is a safe place for everyone in the LGBTQ+ community and they come together every week on Tuesdays from 19:00 till around 22:00, they plan fun activities such as playing games or watching movies. One week can be a lazy activity and the other week they give more information about the LGBTQ+ community and how they can communicate with allies and have open conversations.

In many ways, BUas is trying to contribute to raising awareness, such as different screens throughout the whole school with different sexualities and genders telling a story. Also, the radio is playing music supporting the LGBTQ+ community.

Purple Friday is the first step of the staircase to a better goal. We invite you to not only be aware of the community in this week but always; we can only do this together. Think about it, what have you done to support this community and how? Please let us know!

Written by Jannah El Eshraky and Myrthe Hendrix