Health

Cara-Friend turns 50: ‘I was able to talk openly about who I was for the first time’

One evening in 1978, 19-year-old Paul Meekin walked into a phone box and nervously dialled a number he had seen advertised in the pages of the Belfast Telegraph. It was for Cara-Friend, a befriending and information service for gay and lesbian people in 1974.

Charlie Lynch and Timothy O’Connell explore the history of the service organisation which is celebrating five decades of supporting and empowering the LGBTQ+ community in NI Heather Fleming, Paul Meekin and Mary Kay Mullan One evening in 1978, 19-year-old Paul Meekin walked into a phone box and nervously dialled a number he had seen advertised in the pages of the Belfast Telegraph. It was for Cara-Friend, a befriending and information service for gay and lesbian people in 1974. After speaking to a supportive volunteer, he arranged to meet two befrienders and was then invited to a meeting in Cara-Friend’s office.

Here, he found support and community, in time becoming a volunteer himself, answering helpline calls from others in need..