GISDA is a charity established in 1986 working with homeless and vulnerable young people in North West Wales.
Our LGBTQ+ youth club has been running since 2017, reflecting the need to give space for young people who identify themselves as LGBTQ+ to be themselves and to have fun. The informal club was established as a meeting place for young LGBT+ people to feel comfortable and happy. It is a place where they can support each other, express themselves freely, and identify with others.
Although the club has been in existence for 3 years it has been severely under resourced. Kiri Pritchard Maclean and her colleagues helped us raise funding to employ 1 member of staff for 1 day per week following a successful comedy night she arranged in Pontio, Bangor which we will be forever grateful.
This enabled us to work with the young people on a lottery application. We were then fortunate to receive funding from the National Lottery Community Fund to employ a member of staff which will help us to develop clubs in other areas so that young people dont have to travel 50 miles to their nearest club.
We cannot over emphasize the importance of the club for the young people from the LGBTQ+ community it makes a world of difference to their health, happiness and wellbeing and assist them to flourish into wonderful and confident young people which we are extremely proud of.
Why do we need further funding?
The young people have stated many times that they would like to do much more and we are asking for your help to support us to be able to fund some of the following listed below. We know we are asking a lot but we believe young people from the LGBTQ+ community deserves the best and we want to play our part to make sure that we try our best on their behalf. All these things cost money and we need additional funding to able to achieve our goals and dreams.