Outreach Work

We are committed to supporting communities outside of our bigger cities to be safer places for young people of minority sexual orientations and genders to live and be in.

Whanganui, Queenstown, Hawke’s Bay and Otago are some of the places that we’ve been supporting to do this!

Queenstown and Central Otago
In October 2017 we took our first trip to Central Otago, visiting schools in Queenstown, Wanaka and Cromwell to help make their region a safer place for LGBTQIA+ youth. We trained the Central Otago Youth Worker’s Network on working with LGBTQIA+ youth and spent time with The Spectrum Club and Sexual and Gender Alliance Wanaka supporting them to sustain their groups and reach more young people.

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Whanganui
Over 2013-2016 we supported the region of Whanganui to step up it’s support for LGBTQIA+ youth. We visited Whanganui schools, youth organisations and introduced Shift Whanganui as a youth hui in 2015 and 2016, focused on encouraging sexuality, sex and gender diversity to be supported in the region.

As a result of our hui and outreach visits inclusivity work is happening in several local high-schools and a community queer straight alliance called Light Whanganui was established to provide weekly support for local young people.

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Otago

In April 2016, we visited the Otago region thanks to the support of the disestablished PFLAG South group. We worked with local support service, OUSA Queer Support to connect with different schools in the region.

As a result of our visit, several schools in Otago have set up rainbow diversity groups and many are taking steps to make their schools more inclusive environments.