A historic agreement has been reached between the Montréal 2006 Gay Games VII Organizing Committee and Radio-Canada, which will be covering the Games—a first for both the public broadcaster and the Gay Games.
Radio-Canada Television will air the Games' Opening and Closing ceremonies, showcase one hour of competition highlights per day over eight days, and produce special social and cultural programming. The latter content will be broadcast both before
and during the Games. All of the Corporation's French-language media lines (network television, RDI, radio, Web) will be
involved in Gay Games VII coverage.
Participating corporate sponsors, the City of Montréal, and the provincial and federal governments will be provided with a unique opportunity to purchase Games coverage sponsorships.
Gay Games VII will take place in Montréal from July 29-Aug. 5, 2006, and will encompass 30 sporting events over seven days of competition. Participants are expected from more than 100 countries. The athletic competitions will be round out by the Opening and
Closing ceremonies as well as various cultural activities.
The Gay Games three fundamental values are Inclusion, Participation, and Personal Best. The Games are open to all, regardless of race, gender, physical ability or sexual orientation.
The Montréal 2006 Gay Games VII Organizing Committee, whose offices are located in Olympic Park, is already actively engaged in planning and preparations for this event. Funding for the Games comes from athletes' registrations, sponsorships, sales of tickets for special events, fundraising programs, merchandise sales, as well as grants and subsidies from the City of Montréal and the Québec and Canadian governments.
'We are pleased to be partnering with the 2006 Gay Games,' said Daniel Gourd, Executive Vice-President, French Television. 'Public television is a key vehicle for promoting openness to and raising awareness of the wider world. It is used to venturing into uncharted territory and covering the events that matter to people across the country.'
More than 250,000 visitors are expected to attend the Montréal Games, which are expected to pump some $200 million into the local economy.
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CHICAGO HEALTH AND LIFE EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN (CHLEW)
1st LONGITUDINAL STUDY ON LESBIAN HEALTH
Although research on women's health has increased dramatically over the past several decades, lesbians remain mostly invisible in studies of health, and in healthcare settings generally. We are working to change this—at least for lesbians in the Chicago area.
Chicago is the home of the first longitudinal study on lesbian health (a longitudinal study follows the same group of people over time). The Chicago Health and Life Experiences of Women ( CHLEW) study is ground-breaking not only because it will follow-up a large sample of lesbians over time, but also because it has one of the most diverse samples of lesbians ever included in a health study. The 450 lesbians in the study range in age from 18 to 84 years and more than half are women of color. Lesbian participants in the CHLEW were first interviewed in 2000-2001. These women were recruited from the Chicago and surrounding suburbs with the help of community-based organizations, community leaders, and many individual lesbians in Chicago. The CHLEW study provides a wealth of information about lesbians' health, their attitudes and beliefs, problems and stresses, and relationships with important people in their lives.
Another important strength of the study is that it will compare findings from lesbians with those from a group of national sample of urban/suburban heterosexual women of the same ages. Although the CHLEW focuses on lesbians in Chicago, the results will have important implications for lesbians throughout the United States.
This is the first part of a monthly series that will focus on what we've learned from the results of the CHLEW study. In the coming weeks and months we will report on a variety of topics such as health concerns of African American lesbians, Latina lesbians, and lesbians over 50; relationship issues; depression and other mental health issues; alcohol and other drug use; sexual identity development; and coming out.
We are now conducting the second phase of interviews with the 450 women who participated in the study in 2000-2001. The overall success of this research project depends on finding and interviewing as many women from the first phase of the study as possible. We have lost contact with about 35 of the 450 women who were interviewed three years ago. If you or anyone you know participated in the first phase of the study please call our toll-free number 1-866-933-3459 or contact us via e-mail (chlewstudy@yahoo.com). No one can replace the original participants (we cannot add lesbians to the study who did not participate in 2000-'01), so it is critically important that we locate each of the 35 missing participants. We very much appreciate your help and look forward to bringing you interesting and useful information about health issues of importance to our community.
— CHLEW Coordinators
