From InformAsian, GAPSN monthly newsletter, July, 2000

GAPSN has been awarded a $10,000 grant from Liberty Hill to prepare "coming out" literature for immigrant communities in eight different languages and to run a print media campaign with a "tolerance" message. This will be combined with an outreach effort geared towards educating API services centers with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered communities that they serve. The focus of the campaign with be on API immigrant communities.

The first part of the grant will allow GAPSN to prepare coming out literature that is culturally sensitive for APIs. We will be working off of a "Facing Out" pamphlet distributed by ASIA (an AIDS organization out of Toronto). The original pamphlet was geared specifically towards APIs. It created a model in which sexual orientation, whether it be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, is first dealt with by the family. The family then faces society as a united front, hence the term "Facing Out."

In addition, there will be print campaign. This print campaign will be in API foreign language newspapers. The focus of the print campaign is to increase awareness about the LGBT members living, working, and loving in the immigrant communities. The focus will really be on a message of tolerance and acceptance. GAPSN is hoping to that we will have API families to showcase in their struggles to gain acceptance in the mainstream API community.

Combined with the literature and the media campaign is GAPSN's outreach to the API community services centers to try to educate their employees about LGBT issues. The idea is to sensitize them towards the hurdles that APIs face in gaining acceptance from their families, API society and America at large.

The funds will be distributed specifically for the purposes of supporting our foreign language speaking brothers and sisters and may not be used for any of GAPSN's general programming. GAPSN is setting up a separate fund specifically for this grant separate from our regular account.

If you are interested in helping us outreach to our API community, please write us at gapsn@yahoo.com or contact one of our officers. Your support is greatly needed.