New friends at the LGBT Center
The Mishlahat met their New York counterparts at the Center's YES program for LGBT teens.
We held 3 meetings during the week in the New York LGBT center. Through the meetings we got to meet over 100 LGBT kids from all around NYC.
The program, built by Jenny Debower from YES and Eden from JOH, allowed us to introduce ourselves and learn a lot about the lives of kids like us from NYC.
During the meeting with YES we learned how to vogue-dance, we taught YES kids popular Israeli board games, and words in Hebrew. Most importantly, they educated us about what it's like to be a GLBT young person in NYC.
We'd like to thank our teen Welcoming group, and especially Simba, who took part in all the meetings we had at YES, and made sure we fit right in….
In the picture: Simba speaking at the CBST vigil for the murder victims, August 5th, 2009: http://www.cbst.org/About/News/CBST-Rallies-to-Support-LGBT-Friends-in-Israel
From Daniella: "I was happy to meet a group of teens in YES. I enjoyed witnessing their passion for life in everything they did: the dancing, the activities, their relationships with each other. It felt really good to know that kids from NYC who were not Jewish or connected to Israel, cared about us and were sad and shocked by the murders in Tel-Aviv."
From Lior: "Even though I didn't know anybody there, I felt like I belonged. It didn't matter that I was from a different country. A friend from YES gave me his pride bracelet, for me to keep for him, and so that I don’t forget him. We keep in touch on Facebook and Skype."
