Forty per cent of the world’s population live in countries where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people can be imprisoned, just for being themselves.

UK charity Stonewall is fighting to change this and has launched a set of Global Workplace Briefings open to UCL staff and students to access the latest information.

UCL has a history of opening up education to people previously excluded from it, and was the first UK university to join Stonewall’s Global Diversity Champion programme for international employers, helping to promote equality around the world.

The new Global Workplace Briefings shine a spotlight on the situation for LGBT people in different countries, which will enable UCL staff and students planning to work overseas to keep up to date on changing laws and the potential implications.

Protecting from discrimination

In more than half the world, LGBT people are not protected from discrimination under workplace law.

The first set of briefings, which are available via UCL’s Equalities website, cover Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and Turkey.

Further briefings will follow later this year.

Each briefing outlines the legal, socio-cultural and workplace situation for LGBT people in the specified country and showcases progressive workplace practices from Stonewall’s membership.

They provide an important summary of in-country contexts for global mobility teams, helping them to identify where colleagues may need additional support when travelling internationally.

Supporting UCL’s LGBTQ community

Dr Fiona Leigh, a member of UCL’s LGBTQ+ Equality Advisory Group (LEAG), said UCL is now working further with Stonewall to produce additional briefings specifically for those working within higher education.

She said: “UCL is committed to providing resources and information for the safety and support of all of our staff and students, when travelling and working internationally.

“These briefings provide a very useful background in this endeavour, whether for LGBT staff or students or those supporting others with international visits.”

• Access the briefings via the UCL Equalities website
• Find out more about LEAG’s work
• Visit Stonewall’s website

School pupils around the world will be starting their first enterprises on Saturday 4 July as part of Citrus Saturday, a UCL initiative to get young people thinking about entrepreneurship. The programme gives teams of young people aged 11 to 15 years a taste of running their own businesses through setting up and managing lemonade stands for the day.

Over 200 young people are due to take part in this year’s event, with participating countries including the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Poland, Armenia, Swaziland, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Niger, Kenya and Tanzania.

Media are invited to attend the formal launch at the British Library where Timothy Barnes and Jack Wratten will be available for interview from 11:30am, while local and international media can also attend local stands – for a full list of where Citrus Saturday is happening please visit the website

Citrus Saturday, which is in its fifth year in the UK and second internationally, is a hands-on education programme developed by UCL to provide an introduction to entrepreneurship for young people.

Each team will run their stand as closely to that of a small business as possible, having been provided with seed funding from UCL to buy fruit and materials for the day. Any profits made are kept by the teams to reinforce the link between hard work and earning money.

Jack Wratten, Citrus Saturday Manager, said: “Our mission is to ensure that every young person in the world who wants to learn about business and experience entrepreneurship first-hand gets the opportunity to do just that.

“Citrus Saturday helps to fulfil the need for enterprise education in a fun and easy way, students directly learn skills not only valuable for entrepreneurs but for the entire workforce of tomorrow.”

Participation in the programme, which was established in 2011 by Timothy Barnes, Director of UCL Enterprise Operations, has tripled since last year and aims to engage with 1 million young people by 2020.

The programme is designed for small teams of pupils, with the Citrus Saturday Toolkit available to any organisation that works with young people. The Toolkit includes all materials needed to run workshops covering the basics of being an entrepreneur.

The teams will be supervised by volunteers from UCL and the wider community, who will provide support on the day and at introductory workshops, teaching the teams everything from business planning to food hygiene.

The stands have been generously supported by partners including The British Library, Spitalfields Market and Network Rail, with supplies provided by Booker.