Province partners with trust for GSA resources

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This article was published 27/05/2013 (4543 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba will partner with Egale Canada Human Rights Trust to develop material to help schools establish gay-straight alliances (GSAs), Education Minister Nancy Allan said today.

“This new resource will support Bill 18 which will require all schools to accommodate students who want to form GSAs,” Allan said.

Bill 18, the government’s controversial anti-bullying legislation, calls for GSAs to be permitted in all schools receiving public funding. Critics say Bill 18 infringes on the religious freedom of faith-based schools.

Based in Toronto, Egale Canada Human Rights Trust is Canada’s only national charity promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans human rights through research, education and community engagement. Egale has already partnered with Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador to develop education resource kits.

The province says the resource guide will contain specific sections with information tailored to youth, educators, guidance counsellors and administrators in secondary schools as well as material on role models, symbols, terms and concepts, and community services. It will also include:

• tools for assessing school climate;
• a step-by-step guide to establishing a GSA or lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or queer (LGBTQ) safer space at school;
• information and activities regarding the creation of safer school communities;
• information, strategies and ideas to help educators create and maintain safer school communities;
• information on challenges frequently faced by LGBTQ youth and their families;
• information on best practices for counsellors working with LGBTQ youth;
• data and analysis explaining the significance of educator-initiated safer schools work; and
• information on Manitoba legislation and policy regarding safe and inclusive schools.

Allan said the resources will be available to both public and funded, independent schools in the 2013-14 school year in both English and French.

Allan also said the number of GSAs in Manitoba has grown quickly during the past three years. In 2009, there were only two in the province but by 2012 there were approximately 35 and there are now about 60 in operation or in the process of being developed this year.

Bill 18 is currently winding its way through the legislative process. A public committee meeting has yet to be scheduled, although 134 people have already registered to speak on it.