CONTENT:

COMMUNITY NEWS: Auckland Hamilton Taupo Wellington Christchurch Dunedin THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR: Unify Better Together Legalise Love COOL STUFF: NQRO QYNC What Katie (Tommy) Said GET INVOLVED!

Issue #2: Sept. 2011

Welcome back to issue #2 of the Curious Aotearoa Queer Youth Newsletter! This issue we have an absolute action-packed newsletter for you all with exciting new initiatives, groups, trainings and events all happening in the coming months in New Zealand! We also have a special word from our very own National Queer Youth Network Coordinator: Jack Trolove. PLUS! Another shout out for the internships on Curious! We've had HEAPS of really awesome applicants, and still a spot left so apply before Sept. 10th!

COMMUNITY NEWS
AUCKLAND NEW QUEER FRIENDLY FAITH DATABASE AT RAINBOW YOUTH Thanks to some wonderful volunteer work, Rainbow Youth now has a list of local faithbased churches, services and groups that are Queer-inclusive. If you're interested in accessing this information, or to add to the project please contact Tommy at the RY Hub. Email: thomas.hamilton@rainbowyouth.org.nz OUT@AUT AND UNIQ HOST GLOW PARTY OUT@AUT and UNIQ are hosting a Glow Party Sept 24th at the Rising Sun. Tickets are available through iteicketexpress.co.nz and cost $15 plus a service fee. For more info on the event see: facebook.com/outataut. HAMILTON WAQUY: FACILITATORS TRAINING AND DROP-IN CENTRE CHANGES

WaQuY has been hard at work making some big changes to their services this month. They held a full day facilitation training on sat 13th, and gave the next generation of facilitators a warm welcome and introduction to the team.was a full day.

This month WaQuY became a drop in centre. Everyone is now welcome on weekdays between 9 and 5 (exceptions are announced by posting a weekly drop in calendar on the WaQuY FB page) And if that wasn't enough - all Waikato and Bay of Plenty high schools received a package announcing the redesigned school workshops as well as rhwie new poster. Coming up this month is HAMILTON PRIDE, and WaQuY is hard at work organising the closing day's event: a picnic with food n games @ Hamilton gardens.
TAUPO A new campaign has begun on facebook to start up a GLBT/Queer youth group in Taupo! If you want to lend your support to the campaign check out their facebook WELLINGTON SCHOOL'S OUT FACILITATORS TRAINING On August 28th School's Out hosted another Fabulous Facilitators Training day: the day focused on gaining and reinforcing group leadership skills, group safety, fun topics and activities, and networking. For more info: check this out WELLINGTON QUEER AVENGERS The Wellington Queer Avengers are the latest group to spring up in the last few months. The intergenerational LGBT/Queer activist group emerged from the Queer the Night event in Wellington earlier this year. For more info: check out their facebook. NELSON GENDER QUEERY: NEW GENDER DIVERSITY GROUP IN NELSON! Gender Queery is Nelson's newest youth group aimed at anyone interested in exploring their own gender they meet once a month from 5-7pm on Tuesdays at the Q-Youth centre (next to the new hub on New St. Nelson). Check out their group listing on the Curious Site for more details! CHRISTCHURCH Q-TOPIA HOSTS 'SCARED SCRIPTLESS' AND CONGRATULATIONS TO AKIRA Q-Topia has been keeping up with their awesome, hosting a special 'Scared Scriptless' Friday night. Plus, a huge congratulations to long-time Q-Topian facilitator, Akira Le Fevre, who has become the newest member of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation team! DUNEDIN SAME-DIFF NEW LOGO Same-Difference in Dunedin has been solidly growing in group numbers over the last few months, and have had a makeover; with a brand new logo and mascot! OUSA HOSTS DRAG OFF The OUSA Queer Supporters are hosting a DRAG OFF early October, and UniQ Dunedin will have a PARFAIT event afterwards. The event will happen on the 7 th of October at 12 Below, and is set to be a hugely entertaining evening! For more info contact Ros: support@ousa.org.nz

T H I N G S TO LOO K O UT F OR !
NEW YOUTH WORKER NEWSLETTER: UNIFY UNIFY is Aotearoa's new newsletter for all YOUTHWORKERS who work alongside queer and questioning young people. This awesome new resource aims to connect youth workers across the country, and share ideas and resources for youth workers working with queer youth to receive the newsletter, or be involved, contact Jamie Burford at: james.burford1@gmail.com NELSON HUI AND FACILITATORS TRAINING Nelson youth group: Q-Youth are holding a free youth hui - Better Together from the 2nd to 5th December. There is also the possibility of a facilitators training alongisde the hui. For more info check out their website. LEGALISE LOVE: SPIRIT DAY The Wellington-based Legalise Love campaign was launched this month with an online video and media release. The campaign is a movement to supporting gay marriage and adoption in New Zealand and has concentrated efforts towards an online petition and with a march on parliament on October the 20th 2011. For More: Legalise Love Homepage

OTHER COOL STUFF!

NQRO The University student National Queer Rights Officer, Alana Chang, has written an Open Letter to all Queer Tertiary Students in Aotearoa: check out the letter here! FROM THE NATIONAL QUEER YOUTH NETWORK COORDINATOR: Jack Trolove our National Queer Youth Network Coordinator has come up with an awesome new initiative: CROSS-COUNTRY CONVERSATIONS. These discussions (with people from as many regions as we can muster) will be working toward creating a national vision, direction and strategy for the takataapui, faafafine and pacific, trans and queer youth communities that we are part of. For more info see the word doc attached to the email, or: CHECK THIS OUT! WHAT KATIE (AKA TOMMY) SAID: Hi all this is a lil newsy blurb from myself to share news and views I have come across over the past month or so. Its about sharing some personal perspective and some laughs, tears and or rage I encounter in the day to day job of being a happy trans guy queer youth worker at Rainbow Youth. So this past couple of months What Katie (AKA Tommy) Did: Just a quick thanks to the UNIQ crew who organised the UNIQ conference, it was fun to be a guest speaker and I hope that in the next few months people from that conference will be available to share their views and stories as part of the Rainbow Youth Cross Country initiative which you will see information about in this newsletter. Key points I left with were the need to support people in rural Aotearoa. There is heaps you can do to reach out, so if you are part of UNIQ and want to get more involved get in contact with your local queer and trans organisations to offer your expertise. The crew at the conference really have some super uber skills and knowledge. If you are not sure who to contact give us a tinkle,

we love to connect people to volunteer or get involved. What a hoot it was to visit to Rotorua and Tauranga with Jack Trolove the Queer Youth National Coordinator and Vaughan Meneses the General Manager from OUTLine NZ. We chatted to a heap of locals and met Liam and TJ who are youth leaders keen to get a group up and running in Rotorua. So if you are in the BOP area get in touch (info@rainbowyouth.org.nz), the RY Hub, and we can link up some people to help TJ and Liam out, as soon as we know more we will make sure you hear about it too. Jack and I also got a great opportunity to support the launch of the QSA Aotearoa Network in Wellington, this project is exciting and has a heap of potential to enhance our campaign to stop homophobic and transphobic bullying in our schools. And it gave me a chance to show off my pretty, colourful and picture packed power point about Rainbow Youth. This project will continue to grow and we send lots of happy work vibes to Seb and Tabby at QYouth, its great to see initiatives getting started. I feel we can gain a lot from sharing great ideas and I think its important to realise the more projects we see cropping up the more people we will discover in our community who can assist to stop homophobia and transphobia in our lives. That also means we will have more pics to add to websites and more info to share, so dont forget to let us know exciting snippets of news. Alongside the launch of the QSA Aotearoa Network, I heard of fantastic initiatives happening such as the Legalize Love crew and the Queer Avengers. If you are involved in either of these groups let your media and PR crews know about this curious newsletter so we can share the information with all our networks. I also got treated a trip to Tauranga with Priscilla Penniket the RY educator, we had a fun morning at the YMCA national hui. Priscilla presented an overview of our RY Education package and I shared the famous power point I showed off in Wellington. The YMCA conference was about inclusion and we were grateful to be the opening act for their weekend, and we felt really included and had a great time. Of course we all celebrated the classic queer anthem and dance move from the Village Peoples disco hit Y.M.C.A. If you are not sure of this popular musical reference you tube it NOW!!! It was great to see organisations such as the YMCA representing our issues as a part of the diversity in their work culture and youth culture. And hey! Auckland peeps OUT@AUT and UNIQ is hosting a Glow Party Sept 24th at the Rising Sun. Tickets are available through iteicketexpress.co.nz and cost $15 plus a service fee. Keep an eye out for the event on facebook.com/outataut.

G E T I N V O LV E D !
SPREAD THE WORD! Curious is a growing website and forum, and we want it to be the central hub of where queer youth come to get advice, information and support so tell people to sign up today! SITE FEEDBACK The CURIOUS site is always growing and adapting to changing information and needs of young people. We're

still in development so there's HEAPS of pages that are blank. We need your help! If you notice and empty space and have something to contribute please email us and let us know! BECOME A BLOG INTERN! We'll be closing our call out for Curious interns on September 10th! So there's only a few days for upcoming journalists, writers, bloggers, v-loggers, podcast-ers, artists and awesome young queer people get your applications in TODAY! Learn great skills, get some experience, work with a great team, be part of something amazing. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL LIST OF INTERNSHIPS

CURIOUS IS RUN AS A RAINBOW YOUTH INITIATIVE AFTER BEING DEVELOPED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE OUTHERE! PROJECT AND THE NEW ZEALAND AIDS FOUNDATION. THE CONTENT AND VIEWS RELFECTED IN THIS NEWSLETTER AND ON THE CURIOUS SITE DO NOT REFLECT RAINBOW YOUTH OR NZAF.