RainbowYOUTH has elected a new board at its AGM, and will continue work on becoming more accessible and relevant to a range of young people. The 2015/2016 board selected yesterday is made up of Amanda Parkinson, Avery Watson, Beth Maynard, Justine Sachs, Natasha Gaffin, Nic Thorburn, Sophie Sills and Aaliyah Zionov, with Emilie Rākete as Māori and Pasifika Rep and Torranice Campel as Trans Rep. Duncan Matthews and Aych McArdle from RainbowYOUTH General Manager Duncan Matthews says RainbowYOUTH has recently undertaken is to increase the accessibility and relevance of the organisation to a number of groups of people. “While our centre has always been, technically, physically accessible to those in a wheelchair, new staff and board have introduced a focus on other types of accessibility, including for those who are deaf, blind, or with lower literacy. “With small amounts of funding and support, we are making some progress in this area, with our first resource in New Zealand Sign Language to be available soon. “Another particular focus has been opening up the organisation to people who feel more marginalised within our community, in particular, trans women of colour.” Matthews says this work was recognised as needed in late 2014, “but had a real emphasis put on it after some of the events from the Auckland Pride Festival this year”. He says some outreach is being done within the existing communities, which will hopefully result in focus groups around particular steps RainbowYOUTH can take to become truly for all young people. RainbowYOUTH’s Education Director Aych McArdle says over the past year they have increased the number of educators from one person, to five, with a casual educator model which has allowed them to reach more schools. Among the new projects the organisation has tackled has been developing its workshops to workshops to meet the needs of Māori and Pacific young people, and to deliver these workshops to 6,000 students in schools in the Counties Manukau District Health board area. That’s been thanks to a contract from Māori health and addictions network Te Ara Whiriwhiri. “We hope this will enhance the learning of our students, their schools and their whanau,”McArdle says. “We are now at the testing, delivery and evaluation stage of this project and we feel very excited about this important mahi.” Over the past 12 months the organisation has also expanded the scope of its professional development workshops. “We’ve developed a partnership with Affinity Services to deliver Rainbow Cultural Competency workshops each school term to teachers, nurses, counsellors and professionals working in the intersection between health and education.” “We are looking forward to another massive year,” McArdle says.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 29th June 2015 - 10:14am