#bornthisway

We want to help educate children at a young age about acceptance of diversity. In the study by belongto.org, 68% of students hear homophobic remarks from other students. This echoes our class survey where every student had heard a slur at one point being aimed at another person or describing an opinion or object as gay. We would like to help normalise different families and help acceptance for gay parents and children of gay families. and also single parent families, fostering and all the diverse range of families thatere are in schools. We have written and illustrated a childrens book for small children and are trying to get it published, In thepicture book we show how all families are families if love is there. We would like to sell half and give away half as an outreach project. We have discussed this with creche owners and some primary school principals and they are very interested.We hope to do a reading in a library, as well.

Our Social Issue

The issue is Homophobia. We are concerned by the discrimination, bullying and harassment of the LGBTQ + community. We think in order to start a conversation about homophobia, we must first normalise diversity from a young age. The use of homophobic slurs is widespread in schools and we have witnessed it at a young age in schools- "you're gay” or “ thats so gay” etc. We need our society to be more tolerant and accepting of diversity in people, gay, straight or bi. We have become more aware of this issue through discussion and class surveys. One issue we would like to address is the issue of families having changed and that there should be representation of families with two dads, two mams, or a granny or one parent in the books children see. Some books represent one issue, eg "i have two dads" but we wanted to make a book that gives all families representation without comment, to normalise diversity as apart of everyday life, and this would support inclusivity and acceptancee.

Why We Chose It

We all felt strongly that an issue that affects all levels of society is homophobia. We did a class survey and realised all of us had seen homophobic bullying take place, even at a young age. it affected some people in the class more deeply for different reasons. The research we looked at show that it affects the way people feel their whole lives. We think as it starts young children need to be educated early on inclusivity and diversity. We thought a childrens book was the ideal way to reach a young audience

Our Goal

We want children to learn to be accepting of different people, gay, straight or other. We have written and illustrated a childrens picture book that portrays diversity and inclusion in a story. We want it to be a fun read - a story about a lost parrot-but one that shows all kinds of animal familes, two mums, two dads,, a granny- all loving families. in this way we can normalise all kinds of people and families. We hope to sell half the books and then give away the others in an outreach programme.

Our Innovative Action

we carried out a survey, we held abake sale, and raised money to fund our publication. We asked Amarach for sponsorship.We have almost finished a childrens picture book which we wrote and illustrated ourselves, that promotes acceptance and diversity in people who are represented by animals. We Have emailed Norma Foley, we have organised a publisher and a graphic designer to do the very last preparation of the book to make it possible to print. We have contacted libraries and schools and creches and are currently getting feedback on our ideas.

Our Impact

LGBTQ+ students have felt included on our project journey, and we hope this can happen with a much wider audience as soon as our book is oublished.