Photo: Connie Barden and Martha Fugate   Courtesy YES Institute

Group presents workshops, leadership training to students

By DMITRY RASHNITSOV

In September an epidemic of five gay teenagers committing suicide in close succession brought the issue of bullying against LGBT youth to the mainstream of America. But for Rachel Sottile, this was not a wakeup call, this is what she deals with on a daily basis.

Sottile is the executive director of YES Institute, a Miami-based organization whose mission is to prevent suicide and ensure the healthy development of all youth through powerful communication and education on gender and orientation.

“At YES Institute, we work every day with both the youth who are teased to humiliation, and the youth and adults who tormented them.

It is hard work to keep focused on our purpose,” Sottile wrote in a letter to the Miami Herald in October.

The organization is a non-profit and provides three main area’s of service for the community: Educational workshops on gender, orientation, communication, and leadership to teachers, counselors, registered nurses, clinical social workers, and mental health professionals; student Leadership Training that empowers students to create change in their environments and connect authentically with their families; and corporate training.

“Communication and education are not the easy answer people want; not the quick answer our pain seeks, but, it is the effective answer,” Sottile wrote. “YES Institute’s work is about changing hearts and saving lives on both sides of the equation.”

According to statistics compiled by YES, youth who identify as gay or lesbian are twice as likely to commit suicide as their heterosexual counterparts, and if those LGBT youth are rejected by their parents, that rate jumps up to eight times as likely to commit suicide. In addition, 31 percent of all transgender youth attempt suicide and 60 percent are victims in violent crimes.

“Parents, sisters, brothers, friends, teachers, clergy and even casual observers of these tragedies, everyone on both sides of the debate who are devastated by such a senseless waste of life, all can be changed and healed with communication and education,” Sottile wrote.

The organization was originally started by Connie Barden and Martha Fugate as Project YES in 1996. Today, they make more than 150 presentations per year.

“As a youth, YES was a safe space for me to grow,” said Allison Tinney a former student in the leadership training program and current YES Speaker. “As a young adult, YES was a place to give back. Whoever I am, whoever I was meant to be, YES never said no.”

YES is asking leaders of faith to begin working for a safe world by signing an Affirming Stand which can be found at www.yesinstitute.org. Clergy who are willing to face fears surrounding the topics of gender and orientation for the sake of young people display great leadership and vision.

Already 21 congregations and hundreds of ministers throughout Florida have signed onto the affirmation.

“We need programs like YES Institute that remind us that we all have a responsibility as parents, teachers, clergy, counselors, and friends to ensure the safety and dignity of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender youth,” said Nontombi Naomi Tutu, director of Race Relations Institute at Fisk College and daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner. YES Institute is always looking for donations, volunteers or speakers.

For more information call 305-663-7195.