This summer the international brand Coca-Cola is going to be one of the sponsors of the European finale of Mr Gay Europe that takes place in Poland.
As decided by the MGE president and his team last year, the 12th international finale of Mr Gay Europe will take place in Poland, in the cities of Warsaw and Poznań.
“We want to show our support to the LGBT community in Poland and hope our presence will highlight the situation of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender public in Poland. We want to show that gay people from all over Europe can come together in Poland and celebrate diversity through unity,” MGE president Tore Aasheim comments.
“Even if Poland is one of the more difficult countries in Europe to be gay in, things are about to change. We stride to speed up this process by sharing and spreading knowledge and information about our community to the people,” Aasheim says.
One of the things that are changing is the fact that international brands like Coca-Cola now have come on board and decided to support Mr Gay Europe in Poland. This is confirmed to the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita by the local producer Paweł Zabilski.
“The main sponsor will be HAH clubs, which has four clubs and plans to open more. However, I can confirm that Coca-Cola has joined the group of partners,” Zabilski tells the newspaper.
“Coca-Cola supports many projects, ranging from large concerts and festivals to smaller local events or initiatives. We are a brand open to various types of ideas, innovative projects, but above all a brand open to people. We support the Mr Gay Europe event,”z informs Gabriela Bar from Coca-Cola Poland Services.
Why has this become such a big deal in Poland when you have brands like IBM, Burger King, Shell, Starbucks, Absolut Vodka, Avis, Doritos and other more than willing to flirt with the pink cash?
“It is the resultant of several factors. We are a post-communist country, a religious society, and there is a specific political climate,” Tomasz Szypula, former president of LGBT Business Forum, comments to the newspaper.
He tells that according to the last ILGA Europe report, Poland is the second worst place in the EU when it comes to equality for sexual minorities. Poland got only 18 points out of 100 possible.
The Polish producer of Mr Gay Europe Paweł Zabilski now strongly believes that more and more companies will come around and support the LGBT community.
He thinks that Mr Gay Europe in Poland will attract even more sponsors. Mr Gay Europe is the first official international Mr Gay competition, is has been around for 13 years and so far, has been produced in counties like Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Romania and Hungary.
The event will start on August 4 in Warsaw, and its finale will take place in Poznań. The delegates will take part in sports events, concerts, workshops and picnics, and the participants of the competition will visit the German camp in Auschwitz where thousands of homosexuals where killed by the Nazis during the war.