Govt targets gay youth online
Victorian LGBTI youth support group the Rainbow Network will receive $200,000 funding to tackle cyber safety over the next four years.
The funding was announced by Youth Affairs Minister Ryan Smith this week as part of a $3.6 million Baillieu Government initiative to tackle the online issues young people face, including ‘sexting’ and bullying.
“Accessing technology is an important part of young people’s lives,” Smith said.
“It provides opportunities for education, socialisation and participation in the community.
“That’s why we want all young people, particularly the most vulnerable, to do this safely.”
The cyber safety program will be known as webWise and is designed to educate young people up to the age of 25 to be safe on the web.
As part of the program, youth organisations will offer training workshops for young people to get to grips with their online responsibilites.
“As a community-based, youth-led initiative, webWise will support young Victorians most in need to have a positive experience of technology,” Smith said.
Rainbow Network Victoria has been chosen to deliver the cyber safety education program to same-sex attracted and gender questioning young people.
Prahran MP Clem Newton-Brown welcomed the announcement.
“GLBTI youth rely on the internet to connect with other young people experiencing similar attractions, especially in rural and remote areas,” Newton-Brown said.
“This initiative will help ensure gay and lesbian teens and young adults are able to interact safely online during a critical time in their lives.”
The Rainbow Network will join five other youth organisations including the Youth Disability Advocacy Service, the Centre for Multicultural Youth, the Centre for Adult Education in partnership with Education Centre Gippsland, Women’s Health Grampians, and the Koorie Heritage Trust to deliver the program.
INFO: For tips on cyber safety visit www.youthcentral.vic.gov.au
Well said Patrick!
the internet is dangerous for anybody under 18.
Prahran MP Clem Newton-Brown welcomed the announcement.
“GLBTI youth rely on the internet to connect with other young people experiencing similar attractions, especially in rural and remote areas,” Newton-Brown said.
“This initiative will help ensure gay and lesbian teens and young adults are able to interact safely online during a critical time in their lives.”
Clem Newton-Brown should also know that queer people, including queer youth fired from their position or being expelled from their school because of their sexuality also causes just as much, if not more, depression, self abuse, and suicide among these vulnerable youth. This year, Clem Newton-Brown, apparently representing Melbourne’s gay heartland of Prahran, voted to let religious organisations arbitrarily discriminate against employees in secular roles, often providing services for the government government, because they happen to be gay. Clem Newton-Brown is complicit in telling openly gay youth aspiring to those roles that they are inferior and abnormal, and that there is no place for them in such organisations, even if religion isn’t actually involved in the job, in roles often funded by taxpayers. He has endorsed something as vulgar as arbitrary racial discrimination. Now, under legislation justified and promoted by Clem Newton-Brown, gay Victorian youth must now deny their sexuality at work- a state of being for queer people shown to be harmful by every major medical and psychological association in the western world. Clem Newton-Brown had his chance to represent Prahran and change the face of the Liberal party- but they got in the way of his own interests- so he sold out on standing up for the lives of gay youth wanting nothing more than a fair go.