Following on from the success of last years LGBT+ awareness day in our school, we once again held a colourful and uplifting stand up awareness day for the LGBT+ community. Stand Up Awareness Week is a national event that this year ran from the 14th to the 18th of November. While highlighting the week in our school, we decided to focus on one main day the 18th of November for our awareness celebration. This year we wanted it bigger and better. We decided to focus our attention this year on educating students more about the LGBT+ community’. It is so important that we educate students about how to help and support a friend or family member who feels that they might be questioning their sexuality or gender identity or who are struggling in some way in telling someone that they are. We decided to invite in two main speakers to give talks to the various year groups about the topic. One being Karen Burke, Youth Information Project worker from KDYS Tralee and secondly Daniel Quirke, LGBT+ Community Support Worker with Listowel Family Resource Centre. Each gave informative and educational talks to our junior and senior cycle year groups. We continued the day after lunch with the whole school creating a rainbow art display, followed by a group photo showcasing all our colours in the shape of a rainbow. Students and teachers showed great support for the LGBT+ community by following the plan of each year group wearing an assigned colour while the teachers chose their favourite colour to wear. The day finished with a very fun Colours Disco in St. Johns hall where Rock the Boat was in full swing till the end of the day. Colour was in abundance everywhere as students and teachers showcased their colours with pride as everyone enjoyed the atmosphere of what was a busy and fun day. It is so important to us that in doing this awareness day we are showing our students that we are a welcoming, supportive and safe school and that there is someone always there to listen. We already look forward to next year’s awareness day again. Well done to all the staff and students who made a huge effort to make this day a success,
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