By Jaye Johnson
#IndieGoGo Love: All Of Us Project Making Schools Safer for LGBT Students
“Sadly today in Australia, school is the place where young people report the most homophobic abuse. Since 1998 levels of homophobic abuse reported by students, experienced in schools has risen from 69% in 1998 to 80% in 2010.”
– All of Us
Minus18, Australia’s largest youth-led organization for LGBTQ youth, recently posted a YouTube video to promote the launch of its latest youth advocacy project, http://www.sscv.org.au) and Minus18 (http://minus18.org.au) we think it’s time for that to change.
To do this, SSCV and Minus18 are supporting the creation of a video series which captures the lives of young LGBT people. These short films will illustrate their school and uni lives, their weekend adventures and their hopes for the future. They will include the basic stuff, the boring stuff, the things that every young person has to do. The aim? To show young Australians that their LGBT friends are no different from themselves. To dismantle the idea of diversity in the abstract and provide positive, real stories from young LGBT people.
The video series and accompanying lesson plans will allow any teacher, in any school to confidently inform students about the way the world is – diversity and all.
We need your help
In order to get these unit guides and lesson plans into schools around the country, we need your generous donations. Your donations will allow us to create, print, promote and send these powerful, school changing resources far and wide.
Teachers are pressed for time, and school cultures can be adverse to change. So we are working to create simple and clear, useful on the run resources.
- Just $10 from you, will get this program into a school. Where previously no resources have existed, teachers will now be able to promote diversity, challenge homophobia and transphobia.
Think Schools Are Already Safe?
If you are asking yourself whether or not these resources are needed then have a read below…
Sadly today in Australia, school is the place where young people report the most homophobic abuse. Since 1998 levels of homophobic abuse reported by students, experienced in schools has risen from 69% in 1998 to 80% in 2010 (Hiller et. al. 2010).
Luckily for us, schools which were “perceived by students to be supportive…have a strong and significant influence on the mental health and safety of the SSAGQ (same sex attracted and gender questioning) young people who attend” (Hiller et. al 2010).
Our resources will allow schools to be supportive for all students. Especially LGBT ones.
At Safe Schools Coalition Victoria we have been working to this end for years. We know what we are doing. The time has come to increase our reach and change more schools. Your donations will make an immediate and lasting impact.
If dollars are sparse…
You can still be a massive help.
- Still at school? Can you have a chat with your favourite teacher or even the principal about how awesome it would be to have ‘All of Us’ run in your school?
- Don’t have any money to spare? Could you post/link/tweet about this to your friends, family and colleagues and ask them to donate?
- Have kids at school? And think it is as important as we do that young people are learning about LGBT people? Could you arrange to have a discussion with a school leader or parents committee about the resources that will be available in 2014?
‘All of Us,’ coming to a school near you!
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To contribute to and learn about the All of Us project, visit: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/all-of-us
And please send your tweets of support to: @safeschoolsvic and @minus18youth.
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