Showing our Pride at Yooralla!
For the second year in a row, we held and connected to community events to celebrate Pride month in June as we celebrated the diversity of the LGBTIQA+ community.
Pride centre tour
To start our celebrations, clients and staff visited the Victorian Pride Centre in Fitzroy Street, St Kilda.
The Victorian Pride Centre is the first purpose-built centre for Australia's LGBTIQA+ communities. It is home to a range of key LGBTIQA+ resident organisations and a destination for visitors from across Australia, and beyond.
The day began with afternoon tea at the Victorian Pride Centre café, The Little Social before the group enjoyed a special complimentary tour.
There was then dinner at the accessible bar restaurant Republica on St Kilda beach, followed by a hilarious night of comedy featuring the very best comics from Melbourne’s thriving queer comedy scene for community and allies; 'Cheers, Queers!'
Rainbow Hour at Leongatha Community Hub
Leongatha Community Hub showed their Pride spirit during Rainbow Hour, a newly created event which includes fun activities, sharing stories, yummy rainbow themed treats and learnings about LGBTQIA+ community and culture.
Rainbow Hour aims to make conversations about LGBTQIA+ more accessible and introduces clients and staff to the upcoming ‘My Identity, My Choice’ workshops by Jax Brown.
Bec and Satu from the Client Experience and Engagement Team brought the Rainbow Hour to Yooralla’s Leongatha Hub on Monday 26 June, with attendees decked out in rainbow themed clothes and the space decorated in beautiful rainbow colours.
The activities started with delicious rainbow themed fruits and other treats, before Rainbow Hour co-facilitator and Leongatha Hub attendee Mitch shared a video of one of his drag performances. As a regular drag artist in Melbourne’s scene, Mitch shared his drag culture experiences and what drag meant to him.
Joining us for Rainbow Hour and other story-telling work, Mitch brings his fantastic advocacy experience - working across the Gippsland area to represent LGBTIQA+ people who also have a disability, mostly with New Wave self-advocacy.
Bec then introduced the card game ‘Drag Match’ where participants were invited to match a picture of a drag artist in character with a picture of the artist in everyday clothes. Mitch shared the accompanying reflections provided by each artist of what self expression, creativity and permission to be themselves meant to each artist. This started a conversation about some participants love for the show Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
Lunch was followed by Satu’s rainbow bingo and chats about the rainbow flag colours, allyship, pronouns, Jax Brown’s upcoming workshops and the acronym LGBTQIA+.
It was a successful day, with Mitch thrilled with how the day went.
“It just felt really good to have people interested in what we shared,” he said.
“People were really positive. I’m definitely looking forward to future Rainbow Hours and I just hope that LGBTIQA+ people with a disability all across Yooralla can feel safe respected. Like I am,” Mitch said.
Supporting LGBTIQA+ clients and staff
Yooralla’s Client Experience and Engagement team support our clients one-on-one in a range of ways, including supporting people to connect to LGBTQIA+ communities, events, information, advocacy, mentoring – or just to have a chat.
They will also continue to work with Yooralla services to provide information, answer questions and facilitate training as requested.
Want more information? Get in touch with the team on cre@yooralla.com.au.