GABA

In 2010 the GABA Charitable Trust made the following awards to our community.

HELP OUT IN OCTOBER
GABA held a special fundraising campaign to directly support these four core organisations continue their services to the community:

RAINBOW YOUTH $3000
Rainbow Youth is a charitable organisation established in 1989, run by youth for youth.  Its mission is to provide unbiased information and education regarding sexuality, gender and identity to everyone in the community and to provide support, information and advocacy services to queer and questioning youth, their friends and whanau.
Funding is granted to support rental costs for the Rainbow Youth Centre.

BODY POSITIVE $3000
For 20 years Body Positive has assisted gay men to maintain good health in living with HIV and to help them access primary healthcare when required.
Funding is granted to support Doctors consultation fees for HIV+ people and to help produce Body Positive’s regular newsletters.

CHARLOTTE MUSEUM $3000
The Charlotte Museum Trust is a registered charity and operates the Museum as a Lesbian Centre with an aim to collect and preserve lesbian cultural material with an emphasis on cultural objects.  The Museum provides a wide variety of events focussing on the history and current events giving lesbians a sense of pride from their past.
Funding is granted to help employ a person to train volunteers on how to run the Museum, take items into collections, cataloguing and conservation, and to support the organisation of the events the Museum runs.

OUTLINE $3000
Outline operates Aucklands phone help lines, staffed by volunteers to provide support to those with questions and needing support and advice about their own coming out or their friends, family or their children’s sexuality.
Funding is granted to support promotion of the 0800 OULINE phone service to Regional Centres.

COMMUNITY AWARDS
Funding was granted to the following organisations:

AUCKLAND WOMENS CENTRE $2028
The Auckland Women’s Centre provides locations for and organises Lesbian Support Groups.  The Trust is granting pilot funding for a coming out Support Group for Older Women.
Following last year’s grant to support DVD evenings for lesbians, this year’s funds will be used to train two facilitators and a Coordinator to organise and promote the new group.

LOWDOWN $2500
Lowdown is an umbrella organisation for lesbian events and social networks based in West Auckland.  Some of LOWDOWN’s events are: Lesbian Bites – a discussion group, Dykes on Coffee – a social group, RUSH Dances for Women, Heroes Out West, Dykes on Mics and in 2011 a Lesbian Convention is being organised.
Funding is given to allow the purchase of a PA/Sound system to enable quality sound for various events promoting lesbian talent and culture.

NUMBER 8 FILMS $2200
Number 8 Films is a charitable film making Trust which aims to promote growth within and community awareness of film making culture in NZ and is particularly committed to telling and showcasing stories about gay characters that don’t often get screen time.
Funding is granted to support the Auckland Gay Film nights. This funding covers the cost of venue hire for a season of 12 monthly film nights to be held on the 3rd Thursday on each month at Galatos and Rialto Cinemas.  Any surplus funds from the events will be returned to ensure that more expensive films can be secured.

PRIDE NZ $1600
Pride NZ.com was established as a positive webspace for queer/GLBT voices from NZ with the aim to educate, challenge, affirm and provide a sense of community development.
Funding is granted to enable the creation of 8 x 30 minute audio interviews profiling people who are making a difference.  The interviews will be posted on the PrideNZ website and be archived for future researchers.  Auckland’s GLBT communities will be given the opportunity to nominate interviewees with a final selection process being made in consultation with GABA.

CHARLOTTE MUSEUM $2000
The Charlotte Museum Trust is granted to produce 10 short 3-4 minute vignettes for public viewing on a variety of topics on lesbian issues and lifestyles from the past.

RAINBOW YOUTH $1000
Rainbow Youth is granted funding to develop their library resources.  The drop in centre has many resource young people access from a wide range of DVD’s, gay magazines, Zines written by GLBT activists and many books, fiction and non fiction.
To support the addition to the library’s collection of book and DVD’s, the Trust is granting funding to purchase important titles not in the current collection.
In addition, GABA has pledged to support a donation campaign amongst its members and from the wider community from those who have existing libraries of literature and DVDs that can be donated to Rainbow Youth’s Library.

GABA TERTIARY SCHOLARSHIPS
Three awards of $3000 each were offered to a student who identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT), is seen as a good role model by peers and teachers and who has excelled in effort and achievement in their secondary education.

ALEX EDNEY-BROWNE
Alex is from Devonport where she attended Takapuna Grammar.  She has achieved firsts in class in 3 years for English, History and Media Studies. She has been a member of the Peer Support Team, the Peer Sexuality Support Programme the main focus is increasing gay awareness in school.  Alex has been active in trying to make her school GLBT friendly, speaking about challenging homophobic language in Staff Briefing and the Dean’s meeting.  She made a short film about homophobia which was shown in all year level assemblies later winning ‘Most Creative Promotion’ award at prize-giving. The film is now being used by a Rainbow Youth Educator in schools. She has run homophobia workshops in Year 10 Health Classes this year and last year and has been a member of Generation Queer at Rainbow Youth.

On the sports side of things, Alex has been a coach to the Year 10 Girls Soccer team.  She participated in the Michael King Writers Centre creative writing workshops at the beginning of the year and was also lucky enough to be approved for the Auckland University Young Scholars Programme, where for one essay, she got a question about sexuality in New Zealand, a topic she is really passionate about reading ‘Mates and Lovers: a History of Gay New Zealand’ and got an A+.  Alex’s main love is films and she works at the newly restored Devonport Theatre as a projectionist.

Alex plans to start a Bachelor of Arts degree at Victoria University double-majoring in Political Science and Film.

LOGAN REYNOLDS
Logan is from Hamilton where he attended Fairfield College. Here he was Editor of the college magazine and indulged in his loves for writing.  He was elected Head Boy winning both the student and teacher votes and approval from the Principal and School Board. He has used his position to encourage a number of students identifying as GLBT to be comfortable with their sexuality and to change attitudes in the school overall.

He has been active in acting (Mitch in Streetcar Named Desire) and re-enacted a musical number from Moulin Rouge.  He was an active member of Students Against Drink Driving, and the Anti-harassment team in the school, which is at the forefront of efforts to eradicate bullying. He also became a member of the Hamilton Youth Council where local government issues were approached from a youth perspective.

Logan is keen on journalism and won a scholarship this year through Global Focus which offered him training sessions in Wellington and publishing opportunities for an article on global mental health. He will be studying at the University of Waikato taking a conjoint Bachelor of Arts and Teaching, with a double major in English and History. His goal is to teach these subjects and become a positive role model in the education system.

MATT HICKMONT
Matt is from Hamilton and spent 16 years of his life on his family’s dairy farm. A graduate of St Paul Collegiate, Matt is a top level student with a strong interest in the fields of Art, Photography and Design.  This year he achieved top student in Art Photography and Art Painting and received the Thornton Gallery Award for most promising artist in the school

He came out to his school in the 5th form. He was Stage Challenge Director for two years in a row, Captain of the under 15A Hockey team, a swimmer, runner and weight club member.  Matt became a School Prefect, Head of Social and leader of Hamilton House as an out and proud gay student… a first at this private male-only school. Matt was Head of the School Ball Committee, leader of the Culture and International Students portfolios and Head Tenor in the School Choir.

Matt loves the arts and culture: musicals, drama, art, dancing, and design. His focus is now on fashion and seeks to build a creative career in the fashion industry. Matt will be enrolling for a Bachelor of Design course of studies at Massey University Wellington.