The Inner West Pride Centre, the first of its kind in New South Wales in 17 years, has officially opened its doors in the Sydney suburb of Newtown. Housed in the newly renovated Newtown Town Hall, the centre aims to provide support services and community spaces for LGBTQ+ people of all ages.
This new centre comes after the closure of the PRIDE Sydney Lesbian and Gay Community Centre in Erskineville in 2007. The Inner West Pride Centre, established following a $2.6 million renovation, is a significant milestone for the local community.
Inner West Council Mayor Darcy Byrne expressed pride in the council’s achievement, stating, “We’re extremely proud to be the first council in New South Wales to take the step to establish a space like this. We want to send a message to all of the young people in Sydney that, no matter their sexuality, they are all welcome here at the Newtown Pride Centre.”
The building’s primary occupant will be Twenty10, an LGBTQ+ community organisation that offers counselling and social support. Mon Schafter, the co-chair of Twenty10, addressed the crowd, saying, “It’s a total honour for Twenty10 to be able to run our services here and help facilitate this space as a safer space for the community.”
Following the rainbow ribbon-cutting ceremony, Peter De Waal, a long-time LGBTQ+ rights activist, was honoured as the first person to walk through the centre’s doors. De Waal and his partner established Sydney’s first LGBTQ+ counselling service, Phone a Friend, in 1973 from their Balmain living room. Reflecting on those early days, he shared, “It was a wonderful thing to do, but it was difficult. That phone service, I know personally, had saved people’s lives. So many men, mainly men, who rang absolutely desperate, they had nowhere to go.”
Seeing the evolution of LGBTQ+ support services from a single telephone in 1973 to a fully-fledged Pride Centre was an overwhelming experience for De Waal. “It’s a fulfilment of a dream we could have never imagined in 1973 when it started just with one Bakelite telephone,” he said.
Krisandra Knight and Katie Lambert, who attended the opening with their daughter Tilly, also expressed their enthusiasm for the new centre. Knight noted, “We go to a lot of rainbow family events, and I love that our daughter gets to experience such a diverse community. And it’s great to have even more of that.”
