| CULTURAL DEFINITION/ PROJECT GOALS |
[Sep. 26th, 2006|11:10 pm] |
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Defining culture as it pertains to me is particularly complicated. Too often as a society, I feel we have a tendency to confuse the aspects of culture and what it entails with the ideas of heritage and tradition. Author David Inglis provides several guidelines for what defines culture as a concept in his book Introduction: “Despite these complications, a shorthand characterization of ‘culture’ would see as it involving what different groups of people believe, think, and feel" (10).
I have to say that I personally find that description as accurate as possible. In my situation, with the choice of project, it is the culture I have created for myself, not inherited, which helped the choice along. Raised in a fairly conservative family, Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual activism was not exactly on the list of things to do. My life choices and the things I have chosen to accept and expose myself to, are part of what have led me to be the person I am today; part of what helped that culture develop from the ground up.
Growing up the way I did, the individual I was, I was always different. I was different from my sisters, different from other girls, different from the people I came into contact on a daily basis. I was however taught, that it is possible to exist within a community, within a culture, and not necessarily adhere to those ‘guidelines’. My choice in music, my taste in literature, my ideals on life in general, tend to differ greatly from my parents and the community I grew up in. I have always been just a little bit different when it came to the rest of the crowd and my ideals have been shaped due to all of that.
My project involves detailing the tedium involved in launching a non for profit organization off the ground. The ideal is one that is close to my heart. To quite simply create a place where young people who have realized their sexuality at a young age, are able to come and feel safe, be educated and be steered in a direction that will develop them into independent, free thinking adults. My goal is to create, with the help of close friends and people dedicated to the purpose, an environment free of predators and negative influence. A place where sexuality is not the focus, but coping with the choice to live the realization safely and happily.
Too often my community, young people are attacked for an aspect of themselves that is not chosen. In my minds eye, my sexuality is not a choice, and having known that from the start, it’s hard to see young people so lost, so without the ability to deal with the daily aspects involved with being a member of the GLBT community. My hopes are to provide an environment to educate. I want to be able to have any young person, gay or straight to be able to walk into the facility and be able to be educated, to be welcomed, to see the purpose for what it truly is and be comfortable in the fact that there’s a place in the community where they are accepted regardless of who they are.
The more time that I spend brainstorming the basis of my approach, the more certain I am that in the beginning, my project will most definitely be based within the surrounding community. As an African American woman, I see more of an immediate need for a facility of this nature in areas where I spent most of my time growing up. A native of Chicago, I’ve been hard pressed to find any GLBT geared ANYTHING. Large parts of Chicago’s Gay & Lesbian community live on either the North and East sides, and as of yet nothing South Side based has caught my attention. There are plenty of facilities out there, but a large part of this project stems from accessibility. Many inner city high schools are just now beginning to develop Gay & Lesbian coalitions and advocacy programs, if something like this were to successfully take hold, it would provide one more place for them to learn and grow as individuals.
Work opportunities, counseling for jobs and life choices, outings and fundraising events, these are all things I hope to make a part of the experience, part of the mission of this establishment. To put it shortly, I would like to create a somewhat similar form of the YMCA for the GLBT community. |
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