Monthly Archive for December, 2005

Well it’s the beginning of 2006 and the end of my World of Difference year. 2005 was the fastest year of my life – full on, fun, and did I mention FAST? As this is the last of my diary updates for the Vodafone NZ Foundation, I thought it would be good to do a sum-up of how the year has been.

So, to start off with, we delivered a massive 82 workshops, the majority to high schools with several universities and other community organisations as well. This is quite an increase on the previous year and there are new schools booking us for 2006. The majority of Auckland schools received some form of contact from Rainbow Youth, whether it is through workshops, one-to-one consultations, email and phone contacts, or mail outs. It has been a very interesting experience for me, learning to network with different organisations and discovering just how different things are from school to school.

There have been a lot of awesome events over the last year as well, including the Big Gay Out, BBQ in the Park, Safety in Schools conference, Schooling and Sexualities conference, the Rainbow Youth variety concert, and all of the different group and school visits that have occurred. Thanks to the Vodafone NZ Foundation, Rainbow Youth is in a much better position – having two staff has made a world of difference to us. A lot of the internal systems have been improved and we have a lot more contacts with organisations.

For myself there has been a lot of personal growth. I’ve become a lot more confident working with ‘adults’ (it was a very strange feeling the first time I delivered a workshop to a group of teachers, as I still feel rather fresh out of school myself), representing an organisation and because of the nature of this job representing the queer community (when it’s the first time a student has meet and open gay person), developing and delivering workshops to many different groups, taking calls from young people and others working with young people, and becoming far more aware of the queer-based prejudice that is around in today’s society and different ways of combating it and…making a difference. Basically it’s been a HUGE year.

I’m always amazed at the work Rainbow Youth does; I see a difference made every day here. But please do remember that everyone can make a difference. Anytime you stand up for someone being hassled. Anytime you correct someone who says ‘that’s so gay’. Anytime you make the conscious decision that whoever you are, you’re awesome. That DOES makes a difference, and as my favourite quote says;

“One person can make a difference, one person can change the world. But you must choose to do so” – Joe Michael Straczynski

December at last and the year is soon coming to a close…but in typical style the month opened with a bang….I arrived back to Christchurch on the 1st from Australia to a bustling Cathedral square and a long line of lovely people wanting their heads shaved…so I dropped my bags and set to work getting them ready to register so that they could go up on the stage and have the deed done! The Crusaders were up on the podium first, enjoying the creative buzz, loping off the locks of local celebs’. Some of the results needed a little tidying up but no one minded the skewed Mohawks and Crusty the Clown looks for a little while. Not to be out done, the magnificent team at Scott Base in Antarctica also got together at the same time and 10 braves had their scalps bared and/or eyebrows disappeared. The event went like clockwork and the credit must go to the meticulous planning of the team over the last year. This year the event raised a whopping $80,000…121 people got their heads shaved in under an hour, once again breaking the record which we set last year at 117.
The days swung onwards toward Christmas and the following weekend I was off to Dunedin to train health professionals from Otago and Southland. What a great workshop it was. The group were just fantastic and we covered a lot of practical and theoretical stuff in the short time we had together. It’s so inspiring working with health professionals who choose to use creativity in their roles. There’s nothing quite like being in a serious meeting and watching those experienced hard working teams melt back to the enthusiasm of five year olds as they realise that they too can incorporate colour and play in their work!
Another highlight of December was sourcing a new breed of stress balls…it’s the simple things in life really! These little gadgets are often not appreciated when first discovered by children and parents but after a couple of squeezes they’re a hit! So far they have been used by children experiencing pain, dealing with anger, even parents and professionals have used them to squeeze when discussing tricky issues.
With only days left to Christmas eve I received two Enormous boxes of creative goodies that Vodafone staff had collected through the month of December. I’m sure the lovely fellas at the courier company are still wondering why the Irish woman was so emotional when receiving goods! The boxes had been papered with diary pictures of children and their art over the past few months and it really only hit me then how much has happened in 2005…words don’t seem to really communicate that to me but the images said everything….Over the Christmas holidays I came into CHOC and passed out creative goodies to some of the children on the ward…there were smiles to light up the whole city! With the goodies handed out it was time for a break so I took off to Twizel and Omarama with my fella, caught up with good friends and did my first landing in a Glider unassisted…YAY!

Looking forward to 2006 and the adventures it holds…till then, D.