Story by Chris Kolston and Hannah Copeland

Vodafone NZ has committed to the Pride Pledge, an initiative to increase visibility, inclusion and safety for LGBTTQ+ people in our community. We’ll be showing our support at the Winter Pride 2018 event – coming up in early September – by sponsoring the Volunteer Crew, including our very own South Island Lead for the Rainbow Whānau Brendan McLeay, who will be helping out with various events over the week.

Winter Pride 2018 (formerly called Gay Ski Week) is an LGBT+ festival hosted in Queenstown that celebrates diversity and inclusion. The week includes events such as dance parties, night skiing and cabaret nights. The event runs from Saturday 1 – Sunday 9 September. Overall you can expect a lot of music, dancing, and fun.

“Vodafone is very excited to be a sponsor of Winter Pride 2018 to support a great event which wouldn’t be possible without the passion and enthusiasm of many volunteers. Winter Pride will be an amazing celebration of diversity and inclusion for our Rainbow Whānau, which is something we strongly support and advocate here at Vodafone. We want everyone to be their best and be who they are and the Rainbow tick and Pride Pledge are public ways to show that to our current and future teams," said Vodafone NZ HR Director Antony Welton.

The pledge shows commitment to the following:

All LGBTTQ+ people should have the freedom to be safe, healthy and visible. We will use our voice and influence to support visibility, safety, tolerance, love, diversity and inclusion of all LGBTTQ+ people.

We’ll be showing our support to encourage diversity in our community going forward, starting with a colourful store front for our Queenstown retail store front during the festival.

Martin King, the Winter Pride Festival Director, has been very supportive of Vodafone’s sponsorship. “Without the investment of sponsors like Vodafone our festival would not be possible. It takes a community and the business community to invest in festivals to make them viable thrive and grow.”

We are very excited to be helping out with Winter Pride and thank Martin for his efforts at creating such a fun and accepting environment for Pride.

How can you get involved?

Show your commitment to supporting NZ’s LGBT+ community by signing the Pride Pledge here.

As well as this, getting yourself down to Queenstown for the festivities is a perfect way to show you are a friend of LGBT+, but also a great excuse to have the time of your life shredding the slopes and the dancefloor over the week.

Check out the full schedule of festival events here.