Thu 12 Jun 2014 In: Our Communities View at Wayback View at NDHA
A campaign to get 30,000 Aucklanders to come out as lgbti allies ramps up today. Find out how you can get involved here. The 100% OK Project was born when Auckland Council buffer group The Rainbow Door ran hui around Auckland to see how the Council could support the lgbti community as part of the Auckland Plan, designed to make the city a great one to live in. The community spoke up and suggested a campaign urging straight Aucklanders to support lgbti people be themselves. OUTLine’s Trevor Easton says the organisation was contracted to put together a campaign to meet these objectives. It gathered a small but diverse working group, which came up with the 100% OK Tino Pai” campaign asking “Aucklanders to come out as allies of the Rainbow Community and speak up and say that they are 100% OK for people to be who they are 100% of the time”. “At points we involved other people from the community to test ideas and challenge our thought processes,” Easton says. “A fantastic learning for everyone involved.” He says the size of the project was large and the budget small and most of the campaign working team gave their time free to the project. The team started with a major mainstream media campaign but quickly realised the resources it had wouldn’t stretch that far, so pared it down to a more manageable and hopefully more successful social media campaign. “Using wristbands with the rainbow colours and inscribed with 100% OK Tino Pai on them, window stickers and postcards with the same graphics as tools to drive Aucklanders to ‘like’ our 100% OK Facebook page and spread the message and ‘come out in support’,” Easton says. “The objective is to have 30,000 ‘likes’ by the 15th of July but most importantly raise the importance and awareness of the issue to Aucklanders.” The working group includes two straight allies, who Easton says “were blown away about all of stories of our daily ‘coming out’ in some form or other”, whether that be at the doctor, office, shops or restaurant. “They hadn’t realised that it’s so ongoing to the point that I for one hardly realise I’m doing it, but it’s so hard when you are young. “I am so proud to be part of this working group and I think they have given our community so much of their time, talent and energy and an amazing campaign. We all need to get behind them and get our straight friends to ‘come out in support of us’.” The 100% OK campaign working group: Cissy Rock (Auckland Council), Trudy Dickinson, Jonathan Alver, Toni Duder, Skot Barnett, Sam Orchard and Trevor Easton. So how can I show I am 100% OK? Allies of diversity can simply change a profile picture, wear a wristband or display a 100% OK/TINO PAI sticker on their car or shop window to show their support. The wristbands come in sets of six colours so that you can share your Rainbow with someone else. All donations received from the wristbands go to OUTLine – a support service for the Rainbow community active since 1972. Show you are tino pai by posting a photo on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and simply tag it with #100%OK – with an aim to reach 30,000 tags by the 12th July 2014. You can get wristbands from: Dear Reader – West Lynn The Women's Bookshop – Ponsonby Queenies – Freemans Bay St Matthew-in-the-City – CBD Coco's Cantina - K Rd And a number of Auckland Council service centres, with more coming soon. Jacqui Stanford - 12th June 2014