What is QYEST?

Hello there! QYEST stands for Queer Youth Service Team and represents three (3) projects being delivered to GBLTQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexiual, Transgender and Questioning) youth in San Mateo County by the Redwood City Youth Health Center, a program of Youth and Family Assistance (YFA). We at the Redwood City Youth Health Center are excited to be announcing a new year of GBLTQ youth services in San Mateo County. Steph and Gabe, who have been facilitating the SIF (Sexual Identity Forum) for the past year and a half-and still going strong-, are pleased with a new grant (from the Gateway Initiative) recently funded to the health center to hire two queer coordinators to do monthly social events for queer youth around this seemly unmotivated county. This grant (called QYEP for Queer Youth Empowerment Project) is described more in this newsletter. We also have a young men's HIV prevention project focusing on men who have sex with men (MSM) here in San Mateo, and which will be a great volunteer opportunity for young concerned men to get involved with. Finally, we still offer one of the oldest GBLTQ youth support groups, called SIF, here at the Redwood City Youth Health Center on Wednesday Nights every week. As you can see we are totally excited for the coming year. With so much going on we should be able to reach out to more and more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth than ever before. Please enjoy reading our first ever newsletter and get involved in these great opportunities!!!

Gateway Initiative Funds Gay Youth Empowerment Project!!! The Gateway Initiative is a partnership between The San Francisco Foundation and The Horizons Foundation designed to increase support for organizations and projects serving the Bay Area's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered communities. The initiative is the Bay Area component of the National Lesbian and Gay Community Funding Partnership (NLGCFP), and is being supported by many other foundations here in the Bay Area. They recently funded a total of $100,000 to many local agencies including the Redwood City Youth Health Center. Our new project includes two 5 hour positions doing social and educational event planning. Our two Queer Youth Activities Coordinators (QYAC's) will be coordinating movie nights, dances, community forums, and focus groups in order to provide social services to our queer youth community in San Mateo County. There will idealy be one social event per month, two larger events during the year, and a few community educational forums. The forums would include a panel of speakers on a certain issue and welcome people of all ages to come together to learn and share stories, experiences. You will hear more about speciffic events on the Events page.

We are grateful to the funders through the Gateway Initiative for sponsoring us in this endeavor to bring social services to the GBLTQ youth community of San Mateo County. Our two new activities coordinators are Anthony Rodriguez and Stephanie Hazen (get to know them in the Staff page).

If you want to get involved in planning and organizing events, call Anthony and Stephanie at the RCYHC at (650) 366-2927 Ext 381.