On the ins, about the outs
ACON's Ins And Outs program is a unique educational resource for young same-sex-attracted women. Sophie Hoeller speaks to the face behind the project, Siri May
May was troubled by a lack of resources for yound gay women
What is ACON's Ins and Outs program all about? The program is based around a six week peer education group that runs several times a year, and that group is completely facilitated by other young women who have also been through the program and undergone an extensive training. It basically started what we now know as the Women's Project.
How did it come about? Unlike the "Fun and Esteem," project which was aimed at educating young men on how to protect themselves from HIV AIDS, lesbians and same-sex-attracted women, for a lot of reasons, didn't have that kind of defined health problem to respond to; so we decided to start that program up because there was sort of no equivalent space for young women.
Why is it specifically aimed at women under 26? It's because we had evidence to suggest that in that particular age group there were a bunch of common issues that we could address. It's also about peer education because we've built this program on a peer education structure, which means that it was designed, implemented and conceptualized by other young same-sex-attracted women.
Do you think homophobia presents a series of very real issues for young women? I don't think it, I know it. We see from research conducted that many young women experience homophobic abuse, higher rates of homophobic verbal abuse, physical abuse and exclusion. We see that they've got higher suicide rates, lower rates of self esteem and they're more likely to be engaging in harmful alcohol and other drug use, and more likely to be contracting STDs and not having them treated. So I would say that that indicates we are living in a pretty homophobic society. I'm not saying it hasn't gotten better, but there are issues.
What sort of challenges have you faced in the past? Working with not very much money. But we've had so much support from ACON and from our community, and we've had such a positive response to this project with over 200 women that have gone through the peer education program.
So what would you like to see happen or change in the future? I would like to see this program continue to grow and continue to provide the positive outcomes that it has for young same sex attracted women in Sydney and across New South Wales.
For further information on ACON's projects go to www.acon.org.au