Leadership Opportunities at Rainbow Alley
Required workshops, skills and events
LGBTQ Youth and Rainbow Alley Speaker’s Bureau
The Speaker’s team is responsible for giving public speaking engagements on topics such as GLBTQ youth issues, Rainbow Alley resources, and other general LGBTQ issues.
Youth who would like to be a part of the Speaker’s Bureau should complete the following:
- Tobacco and Healthy Living Outreach Team
Youth trained to do outreach events (tabling, walking outreach) and speaking engagements on topics such as: tobacco cessation and prevention, healthy sexuality,
- Peer Facilitation and Organizing Team
- Justice League
- Rainbow Alley Membership, Leadership and Outreach Plan
August 2008
GOALS:
- Involve more youth on different levels. ‘Youth Leadership’ doesn’t have to end in one or two strictly defined roles, but can be available to lots of youth who may or may not want to be on the speaker’s bureau or outreach team.
- Create investment in the space
- Involve youth with social justice and political education. Particularly, to make LGBTQ youth aware of the connections between LGBTQ liberation and other social justice issues such as class, race, consumerism, prison systems, etc.
- Create links between RA youth and adult LGBTQ community members.
Currently, Rainbow Alley youth are expected to complete a “Membership I” class (which covers the basics of GLBT identity and safe space) before being allowed to eat dinner on Saturday nights. This class also serves as a “pre-requisite” for the Membership II class (on Gender Identity) which gives RA youth full access to ‘membership.’
Youth interested in specifically defined leadership roles at RA have needed to undergo specific trainings (ie: outreach team training or speaker’s bureau training) in order to be a part of these teams. Often, these trainings require so much extra organization and time that they end up not being offered, or falling to interns in the space, inevitably leading to a lack of consistency in the program.
This new plan seeks to more fully integrate the membership and leadership programs into a single model. In addition, it seeks to streamline and, hopefully, limit the amount of time and energy put into each session by creating a longterm plan and concentrating the energy up front.
The plan also looks to diversify the leadership model, making information and skills available to RA youth, regardless of whether they intend to be a part of the outreach or speaker’s bureau teams. By disseminating skills and knowledge more broadly, the RA community will have ‘leaders’ on many levels, and create a space that is better informed and more active.
Ideally, we will also have greater consistency in the expectations for youth doing outreach and speaking engagements. Until recently, youth who may not have had the appropriate skills or knowledge were participating on these teams and had the potential to misrepresent RA/The Center in these capacities. By creating rubricks of knowledge and more consistent expectations, we hope to create outreach teams that consistently represent the mission of the Center.
THE PLAN:
MC: Covers LGBTQ vocabulary, stereotypes, creating safe space, RA expectations*
- This gives the participant access to Saturday night dinner and entrance to other classes
Leadership Series:
- Offered between 2-4x/month
- More in-depth information on specific topics
- Counts towards membership status and/or as a part of leadership team training
Multiple workshops offered in each of these four areas:
- Social Justice Issues
- Community Organizing and Leadership
- Outreach and Public Speaking
- Healthy Living Issues
Essentially, two of these areas are skill based (community organizing and public speaking) and two of them are content based (social justice and healthy living)
ANY ONE of these workshops will give the participant membership status at Rainbow Alley (all privileges currently awarded to members)
Classes might also count towards training expectations for either speaker’s bureau, outreach team, peer facilitation team, or community counciul/justice league.
After completion of both MC and one LS class, participants are members. Those interested in other leadership positions will need to refer to the expectations for that specific team. For example, those desiring to be on Speaker’s Bureau may need to complete 1 outreach workshop, 1 social justice workshop and 1 community organizing workshop before they are allowed to speak publicly. They may also need to complete other tasks unrelated to the LS, such as doing a mock presentation or shadowing current outreach workers.
Any youth may attend any workshop, regardless of their desire or intention to join a leadership team. Adult facilitators will record attendance so that youth can decide at any point what they want to do with their skills.