Young people from all over New Zealand and the Pacific have gathered for Auckland Pride's first ever Youth Leaders Conference. The group was welcomed to Unitec Marae with for the NXT:14 LGBTIQ Youth Leaders Conference with a powhiri this afternoon. Conference delegates being led onto Unitec Marae Auckland Pride Festival Trust co-chair and the Executive Director of Student and Community Engagement at Unitec David Coltman offered a warm welcome. "I'm doubly-excited to be standing in front of you," he said. "It's really, really exciting for us to welcome you here to the conference and to this place, for what he said would be "a couple of challenging days of conversation." The gathering is a US Embassy-sponsored event which being held at Unitec from today until Sunday, after which attendees will descend on the Big Gay Out. The keynote address will be given tomorrow morning by Timothy Kane, the Associate Director of 'Inclusion Initiatives' at George Washington University. Among the guest speakers are US Consul General Jim Donegan and Student Volunteer Army founder Sam Johnson. A panel of out politicians will also offer advice on how to engage MPs, while there will be break out sessions on everything from trans and intersex human rights issues to the 'what how and who of social media'. The Defence Force's glbti support group OverWatch is also taking part, and ran a team building activity this afternoon.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 7th February 2014 - 3:41pm