YIFoS(Youth Interfaith Forum on Sexuality)

Changemaker: Yulia Dwi

Diversity is a way to build peace. Young people are so diverse, including their sexual and faith identities. However, non-normative sexuality and faith are not consider as diversity and rather to be perceived as threat, abnormality, sinner, and non-citizen. That’s how the stereotypes and discrimination starts and flourishes. To change this, a group of young people from diverse gender identity, sexual orientation and faith decided to organize a camp to bring together young LGBTI (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender/Transsexual, Intersex) people and young people from diverse faith/religious group to interact and learn from each other, to build dialogue, friendship and collaborative works on this issues as a way to build a multicultural society amongst young people. They will share about experiences, criticize their way of thinking on this issues, identify and analyze their problems as being a young LGBTI or young people from faith group and find its intersection, addressing their concern on how to tackle their problems together through media journalism, youth advocacy, art-dialogue or social entrepreneurship. There will be 60 participants that will be selected from Java Island and Nusa Tenggara Island. So far, Anna Marsiana director of Asian Woman Resource Centre (AWRC) for Cultural and Theology and Farsijanna Adeney Risakotta from Indonesia Woman Coalition of Yogyakarta will be trainers for this camp.