Tag: It Gets Better Project

http://glaadblog.org/2011/05/20/the-power-within-anti-bullying-comic-book-raising-funds-to-spread-positive-message/

“Sometimes you have to be your own hero.” Writer Charles “Zan” Christensen and artist Mark Brill have joined forces to raise funds on their Kickstarter page to publish a comic book that tackles the subject of teen bullying. The Power Within tells the story of introverted high school student Shannon who, when bullied on at school, is told by his dad and his teachers that the other kids wouldn’t tease him if he just “fit in” more.
Faced with all this, Shannon has created a super-powered alter ego that he can escape into whenever he’s in a bad situation. Pretending he’s a powerful hero helps him stand up for himself. But will the power within be enough to save him? The story sends an inspirational message that “you can summon the power inside you and live through your toughest challenges,” and now that message can be shared with LGBT youth through the large run print of the book.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1701984/mit-sloan-ted-fellow-launches-lgbt-startup-in-india

India only decriminalized homosexuality last year, which may indicate a rather phobic populace and government. But one “out” entrepreneur, Nitin Rao, is on a mission to break the silence and make homosexuality an accepted part of Indian culture.

Riding on the heels of the “It gets better” project–a collective effort to raise awareness and put an end to bullying-induced suicides–Rao launched his LGBT India Foundation to help bring the same kind of public support found in the U.S. to India.

“While there have been valuable efforts in grassroots-level activism, as a social entrepreneur, I sensed a “white space” in the college and workplace settings–this was also a segment where I had the most credibility to apply my entrepreneurial background to make a difference,” Rao tells Fast Company.

“As a gay Indian entrepreneur with experience launching multiple ventures, trained in innovation at MIT Sloan and as an alumnus of The Boston Consulting Group LGBT Network, I felt compelled to get involved, and help address what clearly was a severe void in leadership,” says Rao.

Rao hopes to start a national conversation in India by facilitating workplace discussions and “workplace safe spaces,” sponsoring college clubs, providing student mentorship, launching social media campaigns, and large, public events with corporate conferences and events like TED. For Rao, a serial entrepreneur with startups including Instant Intro and Engineers for Social Impact, the LGBT India Foundation is not only a personal and moral endeavor, but also a straightforward niche opportunity, which comes through in the way he speaks about his startup.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently spent $2 million to expand Internet access in Latvian libraries, $90 million to help African cocoa and cashew farmers and $11 million for further research in the Philippines to help produce higher-yielding rice crops.

And foundation money was used for another cause: it helped develop the script for a recent episode of “ER” that featured the return of George Clooney.

The huge foundation, brimming with billions of dollars from Mr. Gates and Warren Buffett, is well known for its myriad projects around the world to promote health and education.

It is less well known as a behind-the-scenes influencer of public attitudes toward these issues by helping to shape story lines and insert messages into popular entertainment like the television shows “ER,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “Private Practice.” The foundation’s messages on H.I.V. prevention, surgical safety and the spread of infectious diseases have found their way into these shows.

Now the Gates Foundation is set to expand its involvement and spend more money on influencing popular culture through a deal with Viacom, the parent company of MTV and its sister networks VH1, Nickelodeon and BET. It could be called “message placement”: the social or philanthropic corollary to product placement deals in which marketers pay to feature products in shows and movies. Instead of selling Coca-Cola or G.M. cars, they promote education and healthy living.

Last week in New York Mr. Gates met with Philippe P. Dauman, the chief executive of Viacom, to go over a long-in-the-works initiative that would give Mr. Gates’s philanthropic organization something any nonprofit would cherish: an enormous megaphone. The new partnership, titled Get Schooled, involves consultation between Gates Foundation experts and executives at all Viacom networks that make programming decisions. Their goal is to weave education-theme story lines into existing shows or to create new shows centered on education.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/03/entertainment/la-et-gay-characters-20110103

Between Paladino, the Bronx tortures, and the suicides, are things really getting better?

By Chris Rovzar Published Oct 15, 2010
A few weeks ago, I found myself wondering whether the Logo reality show The A-List—in which a handful of vapidly handsome men make fools of themselves in the playground of Manhattan—would be “bad for the gays.” That this would even occur to me as a concern shows just how blissfully easy it can be to be a gay man in New York.

How embarrassingly silly that worry seems this week, with the news of the torture of three young gay men in the Bronx. That came on the heels of a string of gay-teen suicides nationwide, including one young man at Rutgers who felt so humiliated by his roommate that he jumped off the George Washington Bridge. And in the midst of it all, this state’s Republican nominee for governor declares that homosexuality is not a “valid or successful” option. As we were trying to process all of this, the Washington Post allowed Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, to write a thuggish op-ed inspired by those suicides, as though his bigoted gay-conspiracy theories are legitimate.

It has been, at the very least, confusing. We live in an America where public outcry can make a major movie studio remove a gay joke from a trailer for a Vince Vaughn comedy, but also in an America where a movie studio felt it was okay to make the joke in the first place. After Carl Paladino’s remarks, Rudy Giuliani, who leans further right with each passing year, surprised us by calling his remarks “highly offensive,” and the usually boorish New York Post strained to take Paladino to task for it.

Meanwhile, judicial momentum is on the side of gay rights. Recently, federal courts have ruled against “don’t ask, don’t tell”; California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay couples there from marrying; and the Defense of Marriage Act. And yet—disconcertingly—the Obama administration, which says it favors repeal of DADT and DOMA, is appealing both.

Of course, this confluence of events feels more significant than it is: The court rulings are parts of legal processes set in motion months or even years ago. Paladino is an unhinged man who’d already alienated his party by saying whatever was on his bitter and unsympathetic mind. The Bronx assaults, which riveted the nation—even Glenn Beck railed against them on his show—were, sadly, not unprecedented. Yes, the half-dozen suicides in the past few months among gay kids, or kids who were bullied for seeming gay, are a devastatingly high number—but I suspect if we knew the real number of kids who kill themselves as a result of these pressures, year round, devastating wouldn’t even describe it. Which is why it’s such a good thing that these tragedies have brought bullying and the preponderance of depression among gay youth into the national conversation.

As kids come out at younger and younger ages, they face resistance and even hatred. Progress always is met with resistance, and as gay people appear more and more in the mainstream, blowback is inevitable from those who don’t want to see them. These aren’t just people who don’t want to watch The A-List. These are people who don’t want to watch gays and lesbians living in their neighborhoods, or teaching in their schools.

So even though it feels like something is happening—because people are talking, because headlines are being written, because rage and sorrow are being expressed—in reality, progress is just a very long, winding path. It’s one that often seems to double back and take us through some scary places.

Which is why I’ve been fascinated with the popularity of the “It Gets Better” project on YouTube, in which grown-ups make videos to tell gay kids that things will be easier in the future, when they are out of school, or when they are simply older and more comfortable with who they are. “It Gets Better.” Not “Here, I’ll Make It Better.” The passive voice betrays the seeming helplessness of the situation. We really can’t do much to immediately ease the circumstances of bullied young people.

But still, I like the “It Gets Better” videos. I like their generosity. They make me tear up, even though I didn’t have such a rough go of it in school. I’m 29, and I know I’m fortunate; it has gotten better for my generation. But even I like to be reassured that the path is forward, if not straight.