Felix Alvarez
| Felix Alvarez OBE | |
|---|---|
Felix Alvarez, human & civil rights activist and campaigner.
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| Born |
Felix Alvarez 11 October 1951 Gibraltar |
| Residence | Gibraltar |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Goldsmiths, University of London |
| Occupation | activist |
| Known for | Founder of the Equality Rights Group |
| Parent(s) | Felix Alvarez Laura Parody |
| Relatives | Emilio Alvarez |
Felix Alvarez OBE (11 October 1951) is a Gibraltarian human, civil rights, democracy & LGBT activist.
Felix Alvarez was born at Old St. Bernard’s Hospital, Gibraltar, to Felix and Laura Alvarez (née Parody). As a young boy, he attended St. Anne’s Middle School in Gibraltar.
Alvarez's family moved to London in 1959, living first near the Dalston/Hoxton area of the East End of London but spending the majority of his life in the South London areas of Clapham and Tulse Hill. Alvarez grew up bilingual in English and Spanish as do most Gibraltarians. Yet the experience of being "foreign" in 1960s London was not easy for him or his family. He has vivid memories of tobacconist notice boards full of accommodation "to let" signs saying "no coloureds or dogs".
The experience of being different in an unaccepting society alerted him from an early age to the situation of the marginalised. As a teenager, Alvarez attended Wandsworth Comprehensive School, a progressive post-grammar school model, famous for its choir and close work with Benjamin Britten. It was during this period of his formative teenage years that, through personal contact, Alvarez joined Peter Hain in his Anti-Apartheid campaigns, work which he continued later at university as a young student in the early 1970s.
Returning to London after 3 years in a northern university, Alvarez discovered the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), recently imported from the Stonewall riots of New York in the late 1960s. Becoming immediately involved in its activities, Alvarez was one of the founders of Britain’s first Gay Community Centres, where pioneering work was undertaken to establish phone counselling, information and advice, and weekly community meetings to raise self-esteem and channel gay and lesbian anger towards change rather than towards self-damage. At this time, Felix Alvarez worked with the Lambeth Community Law Centre and the Brixton Housing Advice Centre in Railton Road.
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Wikipedia