Stand Up! LGBT Awareness Week
BeLonG To is very excited to be launching a new advocacy campaign, Stand Up! LGBT Awareness Week! Stand Up! is aimed at creating positive understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people and their issues.
Why do we need Stand Up week?
Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people develop their sexual and gender identities within supportive families and communities and are leading happy lives. However, many other LGBT young people experience serious levels of homophobia, transphobia and exclusion in their schools, youth clubs and local areas.
Stand Up! Week will provide an annual focus for promoting positive awareness of LGBT young people, tackling homophobia and homophobic bullying, and building allies among young people and youth workers.
Stand Up Week, 2010
The first Stand Up! Week will be held 9 – 18 April 2010, and will take place mainly in youth services around Ireland.
During Stand Up! Week youth workers will offer all young people who participate in their centre the opportunity to participate in fun and educational activities. These will increase awareness, build supportive links among young people and reduce the incidence of bullying and name-calling. The Activities Pack for Stand Up! Week will include a poster for each youth centre and stickers for young people. Other fun events will be organized to publicise Stand Up! Week and encourage young people to participate.
To help youth workers prepare for Stand Up! Week, BeLonG To Youth Services will offer free training workshops around the country. These will give youth workers specific training about the activities that will be part of the Stand Up Week pack. The list of workshops including dates and locations is available here.
In the early January 2010, youth services around Ireland were sent an invitation to join Stand Up! Week. See below for the invitation.
Within 24 hours, we had already begun to receive positive responses from across the country!
In order to participate in Stand Up!, please post in your Reply Card as soon as possible – or use the attached Sign Up form by 28 January 2010.
*If you or your youth service did not receive an invitation to Stand Up! Week* email us ASAP at info@belongto.org , or phone us at: 01-670-6223.