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Heoi ano, anei te panui mō nga takatāpui taiohi o te motu. Sign-up to Updates New Faces for OUT THERE! WELCOME: Elizabeth - Kaimahi, Takatāpui Taiohi Elizabeth Kerekere has 29 years of experience working within Maori and other community organisations. She has been active in LGBTIQ communities for over 25 years with an increasing focus on the health and well-being of Takatāpui. Since 2002, Elizabeth has managed her own consultancy in Treaty Relations and strategic planning, Te Po Kerekere Consultants, which included several projects with Iwi on whanau development. Elizabeth founded the takatāpui cultural/political group, Tiwhanawhana in 2001. This new Kaimahi position is a nation role, and Elizabeth will be based out of the Āwhina Centre in Wellington. MOVING: Nathan - NZAF ICT Health & Youth Development Programme Leader After more than two years, Nathan is moving to a new Auckland based role with the NZ AIDS Foundation as Programme Leader ICT Health and Youth Development. This new role will lead the OUT THERE! team within NZAF, provide advice across the Communications and Prevention Group on youth health and youth development issues, lead technology based communications and prevention interventions, and provide guidance, support and new initiatives to the HIV prevention work of NZAF in the technology environment; and on line social marketing projects. Nathan’s last day in his current role will be August 14. A new OUT THERE! Youth Development Worker to continue his OUT THERE!'s will be announced in August.
Involve 08: Relate: First Ever Queer Caucus Big congratulations to NZAAHD for an awesome Involve 08 earlier this month. The first ever Queer Caucus happened at the Conference, which is the biggest biennial Youth Development Conference in New Zealand. Attendees of the lunch time caucus meeting discussed tricky issues such as disclosing sexual identity to young people they work with and negotiating some of the intersections between faith-based approaches and queer workers and young people. There were also a number of excellent queer themed workshops at the Conference which all had excellent feedback and contributed a wonderfully diverse flavour to the Conference. OUT THERE! had a stall which was the queer corner of the Conference, especially on Friday when there were a number of Trans youth attending and participating in workshops during the day. So congratulations and thanks to all who were queer and proud at this year’s Conference, it made the whole event that much more valuable for all the 800+ delegates!!
SS4Q Thrilled with New ERO Homophobic Bullying Guidelines from Chris Carter SS4Q is thrilled that one of its key lobbying planks was adopted this month by the Hon Chris Carter, Minister of Education. The Education Review Office (ERO) will now be required to ask schools what they are doing to address homophobic bullying and check that schools have specific strategies in place to address homophobia and other forms of bullying. SS4Q believes this new measure will be critical in schools taking the issue of homophobia and the needs of queer students seriously and congratulates the Minister on this initiative.
Sexual Orientation as an Official Statistic
SS4Q at School Trustees Association Conference SS4Q was visible at last weeks annual School Trustees Association Conference in Christchurch. The stall was staffed by Nathan who fielded inquiries from interested school trustees over two days. It was the first time a specific queer presence had been seen at the Conference and plenty of positive feedback was received about how important this issue is. The key message was that Trustees need to encourage and support their Principals to take measures to address homophobia/transphobia and to support their queer and trans students.
NEW AUDIO: School’s Out Wellington: Audio on Demand School’s Out Wellington has more audio to download involving queer youth in Wellington talking about their lives. School's Out thanks the support of Gayline Wellington. Follow this link to have a listen.
EXTREME Queer Youth in Taupo A group of five Taupo Queer Youth had their first gathering at Taupo Youth Café recently. The group have named themselves “EXTREME.” The group meets on Thursdays, if you know of any young person who you think may benefit from this group please contact Shelley from the Taupo Youth Cafe on 027 699 5603.
Closetspace Palmerston North Meeting Again Meetings are underway again for Palmerston North queer youth network, Closetspace. Meetings take place at YOSS (Youth one stop shop). Email Rob ropata_j_smith@hotmail.com for the next meeting date and time.
Bro Online NZ AIDS Foundation | broonline.co.nz (R18)
LAUNCHED: The Code of Ethics for Youth Work The National Youth Workers Network Aotearoa Inc (NYWNA) has launched the first edition at the recent Involve Youth Development Conference in Wellington. OUT THERE!’s Nathan Brown and ClosetSpace's Antz Burgess were part of the working group that drafted the Code, ensuring a queer eye was put over this important document for the youth work sector to ensure it is ‘21st Century Ready!’ Queer youth workers were consulted on the Code during the SS4Q Conference in 2007. DOWNLOAD THE CODE: www.youthworkers.net.nz
International Journal of LGBT Youth The Journal of LGBT Youth is a quarterly international journal dedicated to improving the quality of life for LGBTIQ youth. There will be opportunities for youth, up to age 20, to contribute in various ways such as personal essays, photographic essays, poetry, or art work by individuals or a contribution by several individuals within your youth group. Contact OUT THERE! if you would like to submit material for inclusion in the Journal.
1. 2nd Kaha National Queer Youth Hui – FEB'09 - stay tuned 2. Good things take time: Curious? New web expereince Curious, a new website and txt service for young people to get info and support on sexuality and gender identity aims to be live by February 2009. The service will promote queer youth groups and diversity groups around the country and allow questioning young people to share experiences with others at the same stage.
Are you a queer* person working with young people? The New Zealand Association for Adolescent Health & Development, OUT THERE!, and the National Youth Workers Network Aotearoa would like to invite you to join an informal network just for you! It will just be an email group to start with; but we aim to meet up during the Involve Conference next year (www.involve.org.nz). This is a chance to discuss the issues we face as queer people in the youth sector, to get to know each other, and should help achieve some visibility; and visibility for queer youth also. To join, please email: sarah @ nzaahd.org.nz
BEBO is proving to be an invaluable tool for queer youth to link in with each other and wear their queerness proudly on their own BEBO. Other queer groups have BEBO profiles such as NAGS, School's Out, Friends of Dorothy (Heretaunga College), Closetspace.
Kia kaha Ake! Give It A Go!
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*Queer is a reclaimed word that represents sexuality and gender diversity. We use it to encompass people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, fa'afafine, takataapui, queer, or questioning. |
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