Students and teachers dress up in purple and rainbows for Purple Friday

Students from primary and secondary schools, as well as teachers and staff at thousands of educational institutions will be wearing purple on Friday to express support for LGBTQI+ youth. Purple Friday, which was first held in 2010, is an initiative of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) Network of sexual diversity rights organization COC Nederland.

COC launched the initiative in 2010, when 150 schools took part. According to that organization, almost 3,000 schools are participating this year, "a record number.” The organization said that this total includes more than 1,700 primary schools, a thousand secondary schools and secondary vocational schools, and an estimated 200 academic and applied sciences universities.

Hundreds of thousands of pupils, students and teachers will honor the day by wearing something purple, and there will be activities in the schools "to celebrate that everyone can be themselves."

A GSA is a group of students who, as the COC describes, "believe that everyone at school has the freedom to be who they are, without having to feel ashamed or accountable for it." There are groups like this in about 80 percent of secondary schools in the Netherlands, according to COC.