Auckland UniQ president Clint Woolly says last weekend's UniQ Conference in Otago was a great opportunity to increase links between LGBT groups in New Zealand's tertiary institutes.
UniQ is the New Zealand LGBT Students' group at universities, polytechs and colleges of education. Run by students for students, each group is independent from each other, but share similar goals, and meet once a year for the national UniQ conference.
Woolley says last weekend's conference in Dunedin was well attended, considering it was further south than past conferences. "There were 30 of us all together from pretty much everywhere. All the Uni's were represented, except AUT."
The three-day conference worked on sharing knowledge between each University group and increases networking amongst UniQ's across New Zealand.
"We are trying to reform a UniQ national body, to collaborate on events. We had one in the past, but in the last three years there hasn't been one," Woolley explains.
"We're taking important steps towards a more cohesive, national UniQ identity, helping each group develop and improve."
For example, he says, Christchurch Uni students face a lot of homophobia, so it's hard to get a group of people together. "In Auckland though, because people don't feel like there's anything to 'fight for', we're pretty much just a social club. And in Otago, for instance, they feel like they've got to fight for everything. It's more political."
The conference included a Sexual Health workshop, a Queer Spirituality Workshop, and a look at Mental Health issues - "helping youth that are suffering for low mood and depression," says Woolley. The group also relaxed with a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory.
The conference-goers are now back in their home universities, feeling good about what UniQ is achieving. "Where UniQ exists, it's in a healthy state. We want to make queer support groups in tertiary institutes compulsory - because there are a lot of institutes out there that don't want anything to do with the idea. That's one thing we want to tackle."
