Youth in Action

In today’s blog I just want to give major KUDOS to the young people in our community. I had the chance to attend a World AIDS Day event in Conway hosted by The UCA Rotaract chapter in conjunction with UCA PRISM (gay-straight alliance). Before the event, I met up with PRISM president, Amanda Harris, and some of their group for their Friday Visibility. Every other Friday, these GLBT young people stand on a busy intersection in Conway during rush hour and hold signs promoting equality and tolerance. According to Amanda, they do this to show others that there are gay and lesbians in their community and to show other GLBTers that they are not alone. It was a cold afternoon, but still more than a half dozen young people stood for almost an hour, held signs, waved at passing cars and showed that we are a part of the community. Obviously there were some mixed reactions--- some smiled, some honked their horns (I, the optimist, took as a show of support), some yelled anti-gay sentiments (most notably, “Go home faggots” to which I replied “We are home”—hell, I went to high school less than ten miles away in Vilonia for god’s sake!) but almost everyone slowed down to look. These college kids could have done a lot of other things on a Friday afternoon but they chose to once again stand up and make their voices heard. Makes you stop and think about what you are doing for the cause, doesn’t it? It definitely renewed my faith in our youth and the impact they are having. In February a conference is being planned to build a coalition connecting gay-straight alliances from colleges and high schools across the entire state. I encourage everyone is the GLBT community to consider how important this mission would be for all of us and to support these young people in their noble effort. I will post more in coming weeks about specific ways you can help.

The World AIDS Day event was very informative and enjoyable. I finally had the chance to meet Eric Reece of PALS, who my friend Carolyn Wagner (http://www.fuah.org/) has been raving about for sometime. Eric was on the panel with Courtney Hampton from the Health Department, Cornelius Mabin (http://www.corneliusonpoint.blogspot.com/), a Conway woman living with HIV and an international student who has been working with UNESCO in raising AIDS awareness since the age of 14.

Here is to our young people making a difference--- may it inspire us all to renew our commitment to doing our part.