Jenny Morrissey, Managing Editor
As a way of reaching out to the community, senior Bethany Dubois has created a website, unitethefight.net, as a resource center/blog for the LGBT community. Unite the Fight was created this past year as a resource, question and answer forum, and blog of LGBT news and articles to help and inform LGBT youth.
The website is part of Dubois’ Girl Scout Gold Award project, the highest achievement a Girl Scout can receive. The project requires for high school girls to change the world by proposing an issue they are passionate about and finding a solution that will suffice for not just the short term but for multiple years.
The project strives to bring positive change to a community by involving members of the community. The project in itself must also be self-sustaining, meaning it must be able to continue on once Dubois has graduated.
“Unite the Fight is an online safe space; it’s an online community that kids can access at anytime whenever they need,” Dubois said. “It’s a way for kids who are struggling or who are having any kind of problems, especially with LGBT, can go online and know that they’re not alone. They can feel connected and they can feel validated. They can interact with the high schoolers who are running the website.”
Prior to starting her Gold Award project, Dubois completed her Girl Scout Silver Award and also a Journey project, while working with the NHS guidance department, in which she distributed over two thousand cards, entitled “Help a Bro Out,” for depression and suicide awareness.
“Our GSA at the high school is really great, and I wanted to extend that program because there are a lot of kids who are afraid to come to the GSA. So I wanted there to be a more accessible alternative to the club,” Dubois said. “The target audience of my website was the middle school, and we are going to start introducing it to the middle school because there is not a really strong GSA program [there].”
Dubois had the idea for the website over this past summer and began its construction in October. Her team first began publishing in December 2013.
“I know from personal experience that middle school can be a really rough time, and really lonely and difficult, especially for LGBT youth. They often times feel very trapped and afraid to come out, so they end up spending a lot of time online, alone,” Dubois said. “And there are a lot of dangerous websites, like sometimes tumblr can be really dangerous and can really hurt their psyche, so Unite the Fight is a healthier, more fun alternative.”
Although the website is currently being run by the Newtown GSA, it is accessible to everyone. As opposed to writing about Newtown specific topics, the website’s staff has been dealing with various national issues.
Articles can vary from biographies of famous LGBT people, highlights of historical moments in the LGBT community, and responses to questions from website viewers. “I actually don’t write anything for it,” Dubois said, “I have a team of writers from GSA who generally submit weekly, and they [each] write about different topics. I am also looking for more writers for the website.”
The website features a “submit” tab where website viewers are able to submit questions, comments, poetry, artwork and their own stories. Students who wish to become part of the writing staff may also contact Dubois to submit an application.
Photo credit to www.unitetheflight.com.
