shOUT!

http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject

*****WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?******

From Dan’s column about Billy Lucas:

“Billy Lucas was just 15 when he hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother’s property. He reportedly endured intense bullying at the hands of his classmates—classmates who called him a fag and told him to kill himself. His mother found his body…. I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

“But gay adults aren’t allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don’t bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

“Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don’t have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.”

i thbink this is an amazing idea. hope you enjoy watching them!!! :)

people let us know if u will be there cos it wont run if people arnt gona be there.

this week in shOUT!! ye are doing a chill out/dvd day, maybe a pizza….. see you there!!!

Derrick.

this week in shOUT! we will be deciding what we would like to do with our new space and doing window painting.

hope to see ye all there!!!!!

Derrick :)

Hope ye all had a great Christmas…

Was Santa good to ye all?

In the past year shOUT! has seen many changes and has achieved so much.
From the first group of the year starting off with our new youth worker, Emma, the group was heading down a new and unknown road. At first the taughts were ‘she isnt Maria’ :) lol, but then she turned up with those lemon and poppy seed buns, yummy!!! she had us won over. What makes it better is that it wasn’t the only time we got to taste her and Maureen’s cooking.
During her time with shOUT! she had us climbing up the walls, in NUIG, which i loved.
She also got us being proactive and giving back to the community, by being one of the only groups in the country to acknowledge and celebrate IDAHO, international day against homophobia and transphobia.
We also drummed in dublin pride, galway pride and limerick pride parades, and also in the NOISE march for equality.
We made a promo video and pod cast with the help of spun out. We also attended the ‘Out on Film’ part of the Galway Film Fleadh 2009.
Also this year 4 of our members traveled to bundoran to an over 18s weekend orgunised Dundalk Out Comers. Sorry to the people who didnt get to go. but it was a good weekend.
Around this stage of the year Emma got her good news, that she had gotten her PHD course. Although great news for her, it wasnt so much for us, because it meant she would b leaving us :( The news though was made more positive when we met Emmas replacement Sara, who has continued to make shOUT! a fun and interesting place to go each and every week.

This past year also saw 3 out of 4 of our regular volunteers leaving us to go to bigger and better places. (Ye need to come back and visit people!!) In their place we now have Niamh and Paul :) So great to work with and determined to do what it takes to keep this group running and always make every1 feel welcome and get every1 involved each week.

Galway pride…what an event. For shOUT! this involved running our own pride events, an open samba lesson, a treasure hunt, drumming in the parade and then our drag show and youth disco. We had people down for Belong2 in dublin and my lgb in limerick, making for a memorable weekend. :D

I just want to say thanks to you all, friends old and new, for making this year such a good one.

and lets made next year even better!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

This past weekend shOUT joined other gay youth groups in Bundoran out door activity centre… what a weekend!!!

We left Galway Friday morning, some random music and a good laugh later we arrived in Bundoran, first, go us!!! lol  After a wonder round town, the others just seemed to appear next to us. and we were off to the carnival…so fun.

Activities for the weekend included ice breakers and general madness on Friday evening, ROLLERBALL!!!!! lol

Saturday began with a 8:30 start, ouch! After we had been well fed, we were off out. The day was all water based activities, Cliff jumping and surfing, bloody tiring but so so fun.

And then on our last day we had the high ropes, terrifying heights but sure a thrill.

pix coming soon hopefully……