Schools 4 All- International Youth Conference

In mid February 2008, 9 young people made it into the LGBT Youth Scotland history books by taking part in our very first Intentional Youth Exchange!

At 9am on a Sunday morning, we began our long (11 hours), tiring, grumpy and bumpy journey to Ljubljana – the capital city of Slovenia.  None of us knew what we would find when we arrived in Slovenia, and to our delight we were very pleased to meet some wonderful people and see some beautiful sights (check out the photo’s below!).

Of course that is not the main reason we travelled all that way, although it was a bonus; we were there to take part in a youth conference called Schools 4 All – this conference focused on school experiences of LGBT young people from 4 countries – Scotland (US!), Slovenia, Italy and Norway.  During the conference we identified common problems, found solutions and created follow-up projects that can continue the all the work we did – of course we do need the funding!

One of the great things about the week was getting the chance to meet up with other young people who have experienced isolations, exclusion and difficulty at school due to their sexual or gender identity.  This made the conference really supportive and safe, which in turn made it easier to share our own feelings, experiences and dreams.  We realised that schools all across Europe are far from perfect if you are L G B or T – in fact for some young people, schools can be a horrible and scary place.  The participants at the conference decided that it just wasn’t good enough and we looked at ways to approach schools to address inequality, models of good practise – like setting up a Gay Straight Alliance, Mentoring Project or Youth Council.

It really inspired all the participants and since our return, it’s all we can talk about!  We want to say thank you to LGBT Youth Scotland for taking part in the project, and also to the other participants for making it fun, exciting, worthwhile and amazing!