Welcome to Outcomers’ Blog!
It is only 3 weeks into 2021, but we are already excited for what the year is going to bring! It looks set to be a year of challenges as 2020 was, but here in Outcomers we are looking forward to overcoming these challenges and continuing to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the North East Region of Ireland throughout the year.
Change and new ways of communicating are continuously needed and so we would like to welcome you to our newest way of keeping in touch – Outcomers Blog! We will keep ye all up to date on the work that’s going on and share some of our favourite moments throughout the year. We are also looking to amplify the voices of LGBT+ people in the North East region here and will share the first post from one of our service users here soon! If you are interested in writing a piece, you can contact us on [email protected] or [email protected].
Since coming back after the break, we’ve been busy working in Outcomers to once again adapt our services to working online and to meet the needs of our service users. We have provided support via email, phone and social media to LGBT+ people of all ages and come up with plans to ensure we all stay connected through this challenging time.
Starting from tomorrow we will be offering an online youth drop in space for 12 – 17 year olds, from next Wednesday we will be offering a study support group online, from next week an online drop in space for 18 to 30 year olds will be starting up (the whatsapp is still providing support outside of drop in), support for our over 30s women group has continued through our whatsapp group.
Several young people have moved onto our Junior Leadership program and even more have transitioned from our under 18s group to our young adults group. Starting Monday, LGBT+ young people will be taking over our social media for certain periods of time and we are really excited to see what they’ll be sharing. Starting next month, 10 LGBT+ young people from Outcomers will be taking part in a Peace Project funded by LMETB to start a journey with 10 LGBT+ young people from Cara-Friend to develop a better understanding of our shared history and community and to open dialogue about the differences and similarities between our lives that will be ongoing until September.
We are excited to say that through the Department of Justice funding we will be employing a new outreach worker, who will support the development of adult LGBT+ support services in Louth, Meath, Cavan and Monaghan. The job ad will be on our social media in the coming days.
The primary goal of the role is to engage with services and individuals across the North-East to develop a range of Supports for LGBT people living in Louth, Meath, Cavan, and Monaghan. To support the work of existing groups and develop new and sustainable supports. Watch this space for further updates on this and more exciting activities ahead.
We have several exciting activities and workshops around health and creativity in the works that we can’t wait to share with you once they are finalised!
Make sure to watch this space for more updates, and don’t forget that we are here if you need us. See below for more details on how to contact us if you want to join any of our groups, or for further support.
With Pride,
Bernie and Lorna
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Bernie – Centre Manager and Social Inclusion officer
0876200021 – [email protected]
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Lorna – Youth Co-ordinator
0861625030 – [email protected]
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