Subject: NGLTF Youth Leadership Training
From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 17:10:38 -0400

NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE
PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Robin Kane, 202-332-6483, ext. 3311; [email-masked]

25 YOUTH TO PARTICIPATE IN INTENSIVE WEEK-LONG TRAINING

Youth Leadership Training Institute Sponsored by NGLTF is First of Its Kind

Washington, DC -- July 21, 1995 -- Twenty-five youth activists from around
the nation will gather next month for a week-long Youth Leadership Training
Institute sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF).  The
25 youth who will participate in the intensive training week were chosen from
among 140 applicants.

 The Training Institute will offer seven days of intensive grassroots
organizing curriculum along with concrete skills-building workshops.  The
NGLTF Youth Leadership Training Institute is intended to increase the
confidence, skills and leadership abilities of the participants, who have in
turn committed to apply those skills to a specific project at home.  NGLTF
has provided scholarships, including travel, lodging, food and all training
expenses, for each youth who need assistance to attend the training.

 The diverse group of youth activists who will participate in the Training
Institute hail from Alaska, Oregon, Minnesota, Washington, California,
Tennessee, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Rhode Island, New York, Indiana,
Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New Hampshire, Florida, Hawaii, Wyoming,
Connecticut and Massachusetts.  The participants have committed to working in
the following areas when they return home: a peer mentoring program; rural
outreach; a video project ; a Latino gay/bisexual men's group; a statewide
information network in South Dakota; a youth coffeehouse and magazine; a
conference for youth of color; youth HIV education; an inter-generational
mentoring program; sensitivity training program for teachers in the public
schools; a youth caucus within the Polynesian gay/lesbian group in Hawaii; a
youth hotline; a regional youth speakers bureau and many other specific
project plans.

 A training team made up of youth and adults will lead workshops and
roundtables throughout the week.  Session topics include: alliance building,
group facilitation and leadership skills, managing speakers bureaus,
mentoring, rural outreach, starting a hotline, creating realist project
plans, public speaking, media skills, fundraising, grant writing, computer
activism, desktop publishing, and more.  The Training Institute will be held
August 13 through 20 at Walker Creek Ranch in Western Marin County,
California. 

 "NGLTF believes it is time to recognize young organizers and activists as
leaders in their own right and to offer young people the opportunity to learn
the skills necessary to create change," said NGLTF Executive Director Melinda
Paras.  "The Youth Leadership Training Institute will offer those tools to
these outstanding activists."

 When graduates of the training return home, they will get follow up support
and assistance through the NGLTF Field Department and, where possible, be
paired with a community organizer in their town for direct support.  Training
graduates will also serve as a support network for one another as they put
their plans into action. NGLTF hopes that the graduates of this year's
training will help plan future trainings and identify other emerging young
leaders.

 "This youth training, like NGLTF's Creating Change conference, regional
Movement Building Institutes and other initiatives, are examples of our
commitment to increasing the long-term vitality and capacity of this
movement," Paras said.  "NGLTF frequently helps activists during crisis
situations, which we must continue.  We need also to ensure that activists
and organizations are able to sustain themselves beyond the immediate
crisis."

 "The level of skills and experience of the 140 program applicants is
evidence of the enormous organizing already taking place among gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender youth," said Rachel Timoner, training coordinator.
 "It was difficult to choose only 25 from such a talented field.  I'm very
impressed by the level of dedication of these 25 organizers and look forward
to working with them next month."

 In addition to Timoner, the two other core trainers are:
  Quang Dong, a 23-year-old activist in the areas of immigrants' rights, HIV
prevention and education reform, and 
 Sean Sasser, a 26-year-old African American HIV-positive AIDS educator and
activist, who was the partner of famed youth HIV educator Pedro Zamora.

  Others who will offer special presentations during the week include Mike
Perez of Next Generation; Jenie Hall of the Bridges Project; Rea Carey of the
National Advocacy Coalition on Youth and Sexual Orientation; Robert Bray of
NGLTF; Mary Gray and Christian Williams of the Youth Assistance Organization;
Tom Rielly of Digital Queers; Melinda Paras of NGLTF; and others.  

[Editor's note: Following are brief biographies of the 25 selected youth
participants.  Information is provided so that you may localize stories.
 Please consider a project initiated by the youth after the Youth Leadership
Institute Training as a possible future story idea.]

Laura E. Burleson, Fairbanks, Alaska. Laura is a 20-year-old white lesbian
who wants to strengthen the Alaska Gay and Lesbian Association (AGLA) and
start a peer mentorship and education program in Fairbanks.

Margaret Butler, Eugene/Springfield, Oregon. Margaret is a 21-year-old white
lesbian activist at the University of Oregon.  She wants to pursue a project
called Family Ties, a mentoring program for young people aimed at
strengthening inter-generational connections and a greater sense of
community.

Thomas Edward DeCaigny, Jr., St. Paul/Duluth, Minnesota.  Thomas is a
19-year-old white gay/bi man at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.
 He is from Cloquet, Minnesota, a small town in northern Minnesota.  He plans
to start an organization that provides outreach and support to rural lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth throughout the state.

Joel Alan Dobberstein, Tacoma, Washington.  Joel is a 20-year-old
German/Cherokee gay man.  He is currently a film student at the Tisch School
of the Arts.  He plans to start a video empowerment project which would be
conceived, produced, and screened by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgendered young people of the Tacoma area.  

Angel Fabian, East Palo Alto, California.  Angel is a 22-year-old
Mexicano/Chicano gay/bi man.  In high school, he helped establish Club MAYA
(Migrant Academic Youth Alliance), an after-school tutoring program, a
theater group, and a political advocacy group.   He is organizing Latino gay
and bisexual men in East Palo Alto through three support groups that he
facilitates and he is a youth representative on the LLEGO Board of Directors.

Tonya Suzanne Goldsberry, Nashville, Tennessee.  Tonya is a 19-year-old white
lesbian.  She is actively involved with One-In-Teen, the Nashville support
group for lesbian and gay youth.  Tonya wants to learn the skills necessary
to create a youth hotline.

Tacy Hans, State College, Pennsylvania.  Tacy is a 22-year-old, white,
female-to-male transgender queer.  He is currently working to develop a
support network for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth.  

Kristin Elise Job, Volin, South Dakota.  Kristin is a 20-year-old Jewish
lesbian.  She grew up in a town of about 500 in rural South Dakota.  She is a
leader of the University of South Dakota Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Alliance and
plans to create a Gay Culture class with two professors at the University.  

Margot Kelley, San Diego, California.  Margot is a 17-year-old
Mexican/Native-American/Irish lesbian.  Margot is currently active in the
youth group Common Ground.  She is a founding member of the San Diego chapter
of the Lesbian Avengers and wants to open a coffeehouse and start a magazine
run by queer youth for queer youth.

Antigone Jody McDermott, Pawtucket, Rhode Island.  Antigone is a 23-year-old
Cypriot, Irish, and Portuguese bisexual male-to-female transsexual.  She
co-founded the Queer Teen Action Committee in Providence and helped advocate
for the creation of a youth drop-in center.  She wants to start a creative
news/zine built upon a coalition of youth activists throughout New England.  

Andie Montoya, New York, New York.  Andie is an 18-year-old Colombian/white
gay man.  He co-produces and anchors a news segment for queer youth which
airs on Manhattan Public Access TV, is a peer educator, performs street
outreach, and is involved with a performance art group.   Andie wants to
start an action/support group for his activist peers.

Bruce Aaron Murray, Seymour, Indiana.  Bruce is a 17-year-old white gay man.
 Though he grew up in an isolated town 50 miles from the nearest P-FLAG
group, Bruce came out to his parents when he was 13 years old.  Bruce has
become a regional gay youth activist and educator.  Bruce would like to start
Southern Indiana's first gay youth group.

Wendi O'Neal, Atlanta, Georgia.  Wendi is a 21-year-old African-American
lesbian.  Wendi has been working to increase the visibility and acceptance of
lesbian and bisexual women at Spelman College.  She wants to organize a
conference for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered youth of color in
Atlanta and establish a regional network of youth of color activists.

Sarah Elizabeth Reece, Louisville, Kentucky.  Sarah is a 20-year-old white
lesbian who is an active volunteer and a political liaison for the Fairness
Campaign, Louisville's Les/Bi/Gay campaign to end anti-gay discrimination.
 Sarah wants to create a project called "Bridge the Gap", a youth
organization that includes educational and political workshops, an activist
arm, community outreach, and mentoring.

S. Erik Richard, Portland, Maine.  Erik is an 18-year-old white gay man
dropped out of high school after he came out at 15 and the school refused to
protect him from the violence he faced.  Erik is active in Outright Portland,
a support group and statewide speaker's bureau, and has been active in
electoral politics, working on several campaigns and running as an openly gay
candidate for Portland's School Committee.

Adam Rosen, St. Louis, Missouri.  Adam is a 16-year-old Jewish gay man who
recently came out and, with his parents' support,  decided he wanted to start
a gay youth group at his high school.  Adam wants to create a awareness and
sensitivity training program for teachers in the St. Louis public schools.

Russell David Roybal, San Diego, California.  Russell is a 23-year-old
Chicano/Latino gay man who has been a student leader and diversity educator
at San Diego State University.  Russell would like to organize young lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender people to demonstrate against the Far Right at
the Republican National convention in 1996.

Alexis Sainz, Hanover, New Hampshire.  Alexis is a 20-year-old Latina
woman-identified bisexual.  She is currently the co-chair of the Dartmouth
Rainbow Alliance, the college's bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgendered
group is a Lesbian Avenger, and is internet activist.  Alexis wants to create
a mentoring program to connect high school students with college students and
develop inter-generational connections.

Ernesto D. Selorio, Jr., Jacksonville, Florida.  Ernesto is a 21-year-old
Filipino-American gay man.  Ernesto founded the Jacksonville Area Sexual
Minority Youth Network (JASMYN) and wants to help JASMYN grow and stabilize,
and to educate the local schools, counselors, social workers, and other
organizations.

Peter Kahe'e Silva,     Honolulu, Hawaii.  Peter is a 22-year-old
Samoan/Portuguese gay man who is actively involved in Na Mamo o Hawaiii, a
Polynesian gay and lesbian organization.  He is currently working to develop
a speakers bureau for lesbian and gay youth of color.  Peter wants to work
toward empowerment of lesbian and gay youth of color in Hawaii by developing
a strong youth caucus within Na Mamo o Hawaii.

Terry Summers, Laramie, Wyoming.  Terry is a 22-year-old white bisexual man.
 He is an active member of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
Association at the University of Wyoming and is a volunteer with the Lambda
Community Center which is 66 miles away in Fort Collins, Colorado.  Terry
would like to organize the first lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered
youth group in the Laramie area.

Richard Villegas, Jr., Los Angeles, California.  Richard is a 20-year-old
Chicano gay man who grew up on the Eastside of LA and is currently attending
UCLA.  Richard has resurrected a student group at UCLA called La Familia, a
Latino/a gay, lesbian, and bisexual organization, which he would like to see
offer community outreach to college-bound gay Latino youth who need support
to succeed in high school, and provide political and social information to
non-college-bound gay Latino youth through a 'zine.

David Elliott Waterman, Hartford, Connecticut.  David is a 20-year-old
African-American gay man who volunteers with the Inner City Youth Project, a
support organization for gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth in the inner city.
 He also serves as a commissioner on the City of Hartford's Commission of
Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Affairs and works with AIDS Project Hartford as a
street outreach worker.  David would like to start a youth hotline.

Edward Williams, Jr.,    St. Louis, Missouri.  Edward is a 23-year-old
African-American gay man who was raised in the projects of inner-city St.
Louis.  He knew he was gay when he was 12 years old and become involved with
Growing American Youth, the local gay youth group, when he was 16.  At 21 he
was actively involved in the effort to pass the St. Louis Hate Crimes and
Civil Rights Law.  He hopes to build understanding between young people of
different racial and class backgrounds.

Young Alex Yim, Framingham, Massachusetts.  Alex is a 22-year-old
Korean-American lesbian who is an active member of the Framingham Regional
Alliance of Gay/Lesbian Youth and served as a youth phone counselor at
Boston's Fenway Community Health Center.  Alex intends to start a regional
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth speakers bureau for the
Framingham area.
--end--