Breaking the Silence Initiative

Project Description

The Breaking the Silence Initiative is inspired by the Day of Silence, a nationwide student protest event sponsored by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) in which students elect to stay silent for the duration of one school day to symbolize the silence that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students are forced into to avoid bullying and harassment in schools. A 2009 nationwide school climate survey conducted by GLSEN indicated that more than 4/5 LGBT students are verbally harassed due to sexual orientation, nearly 2/3 of LGBT students reported harassment due to gender expression/identity, and 7/10 students heard homophobic remarks in school. On top of these statistics, around 2/5 LGBT students reported some form of physical harassment. Our project aims to meet the needs of these students as well as all bullied students through positive service-learning experiences.

The Breaking the Silence Initiative is sponsored by GSAASEM (GSA Alliance of Southeast Michigan), the youth board of GLSEN Southeast Michigan (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network). We plan to provide anti-bullying curriculum through a variety of educational techniques. Our main focus will be at preventing bullying where it happens -- directly in public K -- 12 schools. We will send youth representatives to schools across the tri-county area of Metro Detroit in order to provide engaging, hands on anti-bullying presentations to students. These presentations will be tailored to the age level and time allotted by the host school. These presentations will be run by trained high school youth representatives under adult supervision. While our presentations will have focus on stopping bullying based on perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, we will also address bullying on a broader scale, especially when working with younger students. In addition to providing direct service learning opportunities in schools, we will create public service announcements featuring youth. We will also launch an anti-bullying social media campaign by using sites like Facebook, Youtube, and Tumblr so students across the nation can get involved in spreading our powerful anti-bullying message. We will create a website to enable students to contact us as well as to provide location specific anti-bullying resources and resources for LGBT youth within our target area of Southeast Michigan. Finally, we will work to provide advocacy opportunities for youth through inviting youth leaders to attend our GSAASEM meetings, sponsoring trips for them to meet with legislators in Lansing, hosting youth summits to educate students about LGBT issues and bullying, allowing youth to design and present interactive activities for school visits, and lobbying for support of inclusive anti-bullying bills. By using a combination of approaches to combat bullying, we believe that our sustainable project can be effective at making school environments safer for all students.

November Update

The Breaking the Silence Initiative is off to a sucessful start! Our project directors started off in September with weekly meetings to design the year's programming. We have worked since then to acomplish the following goals:

• Compiled a list of schools in Southeast MI (as well as contacts) so we can make presentations later in the year.
• Created a temporary website with information about the Breaking the Silence Initiative and the ways we promote youth leadership.
• Planned and executed an overwhelmingly sucessful LGBT issues and youth leadership summit. The event had almost 100 attendees and 22 schools were represented.
• Established our GSA Alliance group, which connects Gay Straight Alliance leadership from across the region through monthly meetings and advocacy events. 
• Began working on interactive anti-bullying curriculum to present at schools.
• Recruited high school students to form our Jump Start Student Leadership Team, the youth group that will be responsible for executing the goals of the Breaking the Silence Initiative throughout the year. From our large applicant pool, 15 exemplary student leaders were selected.
• Appointed qualified adult leaders to supervise the Jump Start Student Leadership Team, which we have broken up into 5 committees. The committees are GSA Alliance Leadership, Event Planning, Curriculum Design, Presentation, and Networking/Tech.
• Started utilizing social media to spread the word about our group.
• Began filming our first PSA, which will share student anti-bullying stories in response to a statewide lack of protections for bullied students.

Wow! The Breaking the Silence Initiative has already made an impact on hundreds of people, and there is much more to be done. We would like to thank the State Farm Youth Advisory Board for the incredible grant support as well as the community support we have recieved thus far. We will post with more updates soon!

December Update

Our project has been continuing strong. Since the end of November, here is what we have acomplished:

• Successful evaluation of our LGBT Summit event
• Began planning an advocacy trip to do lobbying and speaking in our state capitol
• Began planning a social event to connect high school area youth
• Began contacting local events and conferences so we can send students to panels to speak across the state
• Began outreach and meeting with local Gay Straight Alliances to improve youth support and programming
• Created merchandise to publicize our group (t-shirts, wristbands, etc) and distributed to youth and adults who have participated in our programming
• Started making an official project website by utilizing student skills in coding and graphic design
• Continued to work on developing inrteractive, LGBT inclusive curriculum for middle and high school students that we can present at schools across the state
• Continued to facilitate monthly GSA Alliance meetings to connect high school Gay Straight Alliance presidents and officers in a discussion and support forum
• Worked on creating an accessible, youth friendly office space with regular hours to serve the needs of our student leaders

January Update: More Information on the This Is My Story Clotheslin Project

One of the signiture aspects of the Breaking the Silence Initiative is our "This Is My Story : Clothesline Project" program. Whenever we host an event or meeting, we bring along rope, cardstock, markers, clothsespins, and we ask participants to share their experiences with bullying or rising against adversity bia writing or pictures. Then, we hang up these anonymous stories to display them to the world.

At the end of the year, we will publish the stories both in a print book and our website as a "capstone project" for our service learning initiatve.

February Update

Another big month for the Breaking the Silence Initiative! Here are a few things that we acomplished:

- Began archiving the This Is My Story Clothesping Project entries

- Finshing up our website and social media campaigns

- Nearly done with an original PSA

- Our youth/adult coordinators led a 14-hour leadership training for our nearly 20 student leaders along with 7 adult  advisors. It was a very sucessful training that covered info like LGBT terminology, GLSEN resources/research, oppression, power/priveledge, facilitation skills, bullying roots, and more

-Spoke/facilitated at several events including SOGI, the Michigan Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Conference at Oakland University

- Working hard to plan the spring LGBT summit for high school aged leaders interested in advocacy, LGBT issues, education, and networking

- Planning several social events and school outreach oppourtunities

-Finalizing middle school outreach curriciulum

- Doing extensive work with local Gay Straight Alliance outreach/presentations

 

And more! Stay tuned for next month's update!

March Update

This month was a big one for our student leaders. In addition to continuing Gay Straight Alliance and local school outreach, we had several meetings that provided continuing training to our students to improve public speaking skills. We have 3 big events this year: An interpersonal issues summit, a social advocacy event, and the end-of-the-year publishing of the This Is My Story: Clothespin Project submissions. Stay tuned for the next 3 months for specific information about these projects!

April Update

April is here, which means one big thing to our project. April 20th is this year's National Day of Silence, where students across the globe elect to remain silent for a day to symbolize the marginalization experienced by bullied youth. GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) is the national organization that sponsors this event, which has thousands of participants every year.

As a local organization, we respond to this important event with a social advocacy approach. After our students have a long day of remaining silent as allies to this national anti-bullying cause, we through a party called the "Breaking the Silence Bash". Essentially, students from across the area are invited to a local LGBT community center to talk about their experiences during the day of silence, create an art submission the the This Is My Story: Clothespin Project (our community art initiative that serves to gather the voices/experiences of bullied youth and their allies in a collaborative way), dance, eat, and meet other youth who are supportive of ending bullying.

This event was a hit, with nearly 50 high school age students in attendance. Thanks to the State Farm Youth Advisory Board's support, we were able to provide participants with free dinner, soda, wristbands, t shirts, a DJ, and art supplies for the Clothespin project.

May Update

May is an extremely important month for our project. On Saturday, May 12th, 2012, we our hosting our 3rd Semi-Annual LGBT Summit. This summit focuses on interpersonal issues and advocacy and requires a lot of hard work and input for our student leaders and their adult advisors. The Summit is a free community event aimed at high school aged youth that is also open to adults (parents, teachers, school administrators, counselors, professionals involved in anti-bullying campaigns), college students, and all other interested individuals. However, some workshops are "closed" to high school youth only to maintain a safe and supportive environment. The Summit usually has around 100 youth attendees.

This year, we are facilitating 12 workshops (each participant elects to attend 3) covering a huge range of issues that affect LGBT students today. For example, there are workshops centered around conflict resolution, coming out, terminology introductions, and gender issues, to name a few.

These workshops are facilitated by community experts who work in the field of whatever workshop they are leading. These facilitators were handpicked by our youth leaders, and all facilitators have strong speaking records.

In addition to providing free workshops during this day long event, our organization also provides wristbands, T shirts, lunch, snacks, beverages, pens/supplies, community resources, and networking oppurtunities.

This event is usually extensively covered by local press, and is sure to be a hit!