Support for youth

Twenty10’s Mardi Gras Festival season’s theme is Kids with Gratitude. This theme was put forward by the young people who come to Twenty10.  They wanted the chance to say ‘thank you’ to those who had made a positive difference in their lives, be they celebrity, community member, family or worker, by standing up to the homophobia or bullying.

This theme also ties into information recently published in the third Writing Themselves In report which looks at the discrimination and abuse experienced by young people who identify as being sexually diverse. The report says the “support of family, friends and, to a lesser extent, professionals was shown to lessen the destructive impacts of homophobia. More significant was the finding that young people, who reported their school as having a supportive environment, were less likely to harm themselves or attempt suicide, demonstrating the importance of putting policy into practice”.

In addressing these issues with parents, school staff and students, we must not lose sight of the fact that sexual curiosity is a normal aspect of being a young person.

The young people we want to work with and support are not ignorant of the sex that happens in the community around them. But they cannot be expected to be able to think critically or analyse the messages they are bombarded with if they are not given the skills. Indeed, we need to provide our young people with mechanisms that will equip them to deal with sexual content and imagery safely and successfully.

That makes the launch of the Mardi Gras Festival guide much more of a relevant talking point for us at Twenty10.

Its cover artwork has a lot of people talking about the sexualisation of the images and culture of our community. As a community with so many young people in it, we all need to own the responsibility to make things better for them, which includes thinking about the continued marketing of our community as a highly sexualised place and where are the places that we can show them meaningful points of difference.

info: For more on Twenty10, visit www.twenty10.org.au

By REBECCA REYNOLDS, Twenty10