LGB Soc Youth Outreach Groups

damien

I posted this on the UCC LGB Soc forum initially but I think this applies to all college socs and is maybe worth discussing:

Been chatting to a good few people of late who are all giving out about the lack of resources for non-college students.

Do you realise how lucky you are with the support you have with the your LGB soc ? Thanks to the fantastic open policy of somes soc, others who are not college students get to partake in the soc acitivities too. Still lots and lots of kids are missing out on these benefits because there is nothing out there for them. With the average age of coming out decreasing, college is no longer the place where people's sexuality awakens. Resources need to be there to cater for this.

Perhaps soc members might consider having the soc set up their own youth outreach group much like the BelongTo Group in Dublin - www.belongto.org run by young people for young people.

The soc has been your backup, your support, your protector. It has given you good times, provided you with great friends and people who do actually understand and "know what it's like". How about you providing this function for those are not getting the same support today ?

Sure, there's some form of support in existence already by places like the various gay mens health projects but the soc environment is safer, more inclusive and more indepedent. Dublin has Belong To, what about the rest of the country ? Plus these youth groups are competing with the limited resources of these already underfunded groups.

Right now queer youth are meeting up online on places like faceparty, mogenic, gaydar etc. Give them the ability to meet real life people, in their own area.

College should not be just about passing exams and going on the piss with your friends. Why do you have to wait for your degree to start changing the world ? Change it while you are still young and enthusiastic.

Rredwell

Well said Damien. I know what you ean, living in Galway myself. I am starting going to the NUIG LGB soc's meetings, but it isn't the same as meeting other gay 17-year olds. Where do I meet them?

Annasopra

very well said Damien,

I can see that there is a huge dearth in this area.

I think that perhaps some sort of push to widen the Belong to group nationwide might be good but again resources are a big problem

damien

More discussion here

I don't necessarily think BelongTo should be extended. I think more local groups should be set up but an overall body to train these groups might be required.

The reasons for more local groups:

It's probably easier to get local funding than national funding these days.
To co-ordinate a nationwide group will need a lot more investment and admin work.
Local can be done with less volunteers and they can dictate their own pace.
You can start really small with a local group and build up.
If you start small with nothing but some trained people you can make impact right away.
If you want to start as a nationwide group, or expand one group nationwide it's going to be a lot longer before you start making an impact.

BeLonG To Youth

Hi, this is Michael Barron, I'm the youth worker with The BeLonG To Youth Project - a member of the project told me to have a look at your board and I find all of what is being said about providing more youth services for LGBT young people (outside of colleges) really encouraging.

There's a pretty long history to how BeLonG To came about (it's on the website www.belongto.org) but basically it took about 3 years from assessing LGBT youth needs to securing funding to employing a youth worker. The notion that it took this length of time (which is really short time in fact for securing gov funding/backing for a youth project) may seem a bit daunting but it flew!

A couple of pointers which I would give to anybody looking to do something similiar are:
* Get widespread support for the idea accross the LGBT community and call a round table discussion to hammer out needs, aims etc.
* Any new youth project will need the backing of a regional youth service (e.g. Limerick Youth Service) in our case it was The City of Dublin Youth Services Board, funding wont be secured without this. Also look to a youth service which is seriously committed to equality and diversity (not all are) as they will be put in the work if they are
*Aim to create a really good Youth Project, not an LGBT service. What I mean is that the structures and policies must be those of a solid mainstream youth project, and the project then provides services to LGBT young people. This again is important for funding at first and then child protection regulation etc. once it's going.
*Get experienced youth workers/managers involved (so many are LGBT anyway!), there have to be people with professional experience and knowledge involved.
* As someone said in one of the messages - aim it to meet local needs and seek local support. Again this is important for funding etc. which is allocated on this basis, and of course to meet the needs of young people in a particular area
* Have people commit to working on a voluntary basis to establish and secure the project for 5 years.

At BeLonG To we do not have any imperial asperations! and do not want to establish other branches around the coutry. Our purpose is to grow an innovative, challenging and secure youth project for LGBT young people at our Dublin centre. Our primary aim is to provide face-to-face youth work to LGBT young people aged 14-23. We do want to support others to provide services to their local communities however and we have sent a good number of other LGBT groups a detailed breakdown on how we were established. We are committed to a critical social education model of youth work and believe it works best when done on a community basis.

At the moment we get up to 35 young people at any one of our meetings - many travelling to Dublin from other parts of the country each week. In the last year we met 3 times per week - we aim to have 4 meetings per week in 2005. This is a hefty undertaking especially as a 1 worker project, and because we want to continue to do really interesting projects at each meeting (such as film making, dance, photography, making an affirmation poster and booklet and solidarity work with young travellers and refugees)

I would be delighted to offer help to any group who want to explore setting up an LGBT youth service and I strongly believe that we need a network of excellent youth projects for LGBT young people throughout the country. It's all very possible to do too!

If anybody would like to talk to me about all of this you can get me on 01-8734184 or email belongto@eircom.net

Thanks Very Much, Michael