Donate for Ken!

Ken Campagnolo Fund Launched

Many people have asked what they can do to help Ken while he battles to win his rights. In response the RJM Trust has now set up a special fund where you can deposit money to help and support Ken.

Donations will only be used to help Ken practically and directly, not for campaigning. Make your donation to:

R J M Trust Ken Campagnolo Fund
St George Bank South Melbourne
BSB 113-879
A/c No.: 429044701

And please email me with your details so we can keep our records in order, and also say thank you!!

Thanks you all for your help, support and above all the encouragement, which Ken really appreciates. He has already has a win with the Victorian Country Football League, and negotiations are now beginning with the VFL and AFL. We will win through but in the meantime Ken needs all the help he can get.

His home has now been repossessed and will shortly be put up for auction to meet his debts. As a distress sale it’s unlikely to make full market value, which only adds to the injustice. We’ll keep you posted.

Doug Pollard
RJM Trust

Bisexual man evicted

Bisexual man evicted

Wednesday, 04 June 2008

Rachel Cook - MCV Mansfield football trainer, Ken Campagnolo, who has been unable to gain employment since being outed, has now been evicted from his family home. “I am not able to go to my home and I can be charged with trespass,” Campagnolo told MCV. “I asked the local shire for help but they have no emergency housing in Mansfield.” Campagnolo was outed as bisexual by a work colleague while working as a forest contractor for the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE). He has consequently suffered homophobic harassment, including being stood down as a volunteer trainer with the Bonnie Doon Football Club due to fears of a backlash from the parents of children playing at the club, despite there being no suggestion he was a sexual predator. Campagnolo claims he has suffered years of verbal abuse from fellow DSE workers. He also alleges a DSE Manager told him: “You can fight the fires for free but you will never get a job with DSE because you are a poof.” His case of discrimination on the basis of sexuality against the DSE has been dismissed twice by the Victorian Civil Administrate Tribunal (VCAT), but is now due to be heard a third time. “DSE have launched another strike out application, their third,” said Rob Mitchell, of the RJM Trust, a philanthropic organisation set up assist people who have suffered sexuality-motivated discrimination. “Why keep trying to strike the case out? Because they can. When you are a government department with, to all intents and purposes, unlimited financial power and legal resources why wouldn’t you?”