What did we do in March?

Helpline
We were available for 15 days in March, took 14 calls (13 male, 1 female) and spoke for 5hrs. The themes were ‘straight’ men with a same sex attraction, relationships, and loneliness.

School’s Out
The past month has been a very busy period for School's Out. We made huge leaps and bounds towards restarting up a new group based in Lower Hutt, due to the high demand from queer youth in the area. We held a community meeting where MPs Jan Logie and Trevor Mallard attended, showing that queer youth issues appear to be gaining more recognition in the parliamentary crowd.

We also held a successful training workshop for current and prospective queer youth workers which was facilitated by George and Mani. The weekend long training had 25 people attending from all over the lower North Island, and showed that there is a strong and enthusiastic bunch of people wanting to help our queer youth.

Sadly, the passing of a former School's Out youth also took place this month. Our youth and facilitators were all affected by this on some level, and we give our most heartfelt condolences to the family and Kapiti communities affected by this tragic event. E ngau kino nei te aroha. Kassie

Newcomers
We had two meetings in March, with 10 guys turning up to each and the stories are as compelling as ever! Stu

Lesbian Drop-In
The Lesbian Drop-In continues to meet monthly at the Embassy Theatre cafe. We now have a sign that we display on the table so newcomers can spot us. The next meeting is April 5th, 6pm - 7.30. Feel free to email me with any queries ahead of time - jo.morrison.nz@gmail.com Cheers Jo

Cuthbert funds for Wellington gay men with HIV
The funding committee had a meeting in March to debrief on the last few years and see if there are any learnings for the future. We agreed to draft a blurb for the website soon so there will be wider awareness of the fund. Stu