The Community Brave Foundation Story

The Community Brave Foundation
                   Story
What is ‘The Community Brave Foundation’?
The Community Brave Foundation is a new collaborative community group made up entirely of
volunteers who wish to create a sustainable and positive future for the youth of our community,
specifically targeting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) youths. It is
100% community run as a non-profit funded by the community through donations & crowdfunding.

Who is ‘The Community Brave Foundation’?
The Foundation is made up of Board Committee who runs the foundation. These members are
community members who have volunteered their time and come from all professions (Social Media,
Nursing, Media, Marketing, Community Organisations, Event Managers, Video Production Teams,
Teachers, Graphic Designers, Website Developers, Executives)

What is our mission?
Our mission is to build short and long term sustainable solutions to eradicate online bullying,
homophobia, Transphobia & youth suicide. We aim to achieve this in the short term by providing a
series of role model videos, building focused training mentors and providing a 24/7 support,
assistance and guidance service through Social Media. We also aim to achieve a longer term
sustainable outcome by providing education and knowledge through society to youths, which will
build a better future by the concept of paying it forward.

How are we going to achieve this?
Phase 1 – Produce and release a series of Role Model online videos to help encourage volunteers to
join our mentoring program in phase 2. Videos include: Public, Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Teams.

Phase 2 – Working with the LGBTIQ Youth Organisation Twenty10, we are developing a mentor
training program to provide volunteers / Teachers / Counsellors with the best training with dealing
with LGBTIQ Youth issues. These mentors will then be seeded into community through schools and
our online program in Phase 3.

Phase 3 – Build and provide an online tool (Social Media Network) for our trained mentors to
participate in providing guidance, assistance, advice and support to youths 24 hours per day through
the micro-blogging site Twitter. This is the ‘lifeline’ model except it is based purely through Social
Media channels.

The Community Brave Foundation
                   Story
Why are we doing this?
Inequality for the LGBTIQ community is still a huge problem for our societies. However, these
inequalities are now becoming dangerous and destructive. The danger lies with youth who are no
longer able to escape from the taunts, the abuse and the emotional scaring of bullying. It no longer
resides in school playgrounds, bullying has migrated and increased its power online due to
anonymity and social technology (Social Networks, Smartphones).

Too many youths have taken their lives, and our research suggests that their final cry for help is
through the usage of Social Technology. That’s why this foundation aims to be there for every one of
these young people who are going through suffering. We want to be able to talk to them, advise
them of solutions and alternate strategies rather than self-harm or suicide. We want to be able to
make a difference in our public schools through our teachers so that acceptance and tolerance is
well and truly established as the upcoming generations enter adult society.

We want everyone to be equal, and we don’t want to lose another young person due to online
bullying, homophobia or transphobia.

Who is the underlying organisation we are supporting?
We are throwing our support behind an organisation that in 2012 have 30 years’ experiences with
dealing with LGBTIQ youth – Twenty10.

Twenty10 is a community based, non-profit state-wide organisation. Working with and supporting
young people of diverse genders, sexes and sexualities, their families and friends. Twenty10 is a safe
place and staff deal with all enquires in an understanding, supportive and confidential manner.

Our Goals
Short Term Goals
    Reduce Homophobia & Transphobia, spread tolerance and acceptance
    Stop online bullying and abuse
    Eradicate suicide amongst youths from LGBTIQ community (but not limited to)

Long Term Goals
    Create social change so that there is no discrimination towards the LGBTIQ community by
       providing educators with the necessary training to address, respond and teach these
       learning’s in our public schools

Here’s how to help The Community
                   Brave
Become a Community Brave Mentor
Registrations are now open for members of the public to become Community Brave Mentors. Our
specialised training program will commence soon, and is being developed in conjunction with
Twenty10.

Please note you must be over 18 to register to become a Community Brave Mentor.

Share this photo on your Facebook Page
Want something very simple to do? Simply click on this image, which opens up to our Facebook
Photo Page. Then hit the ‘share’ button and share this image on your timeline. The rest is magic!
Yep, that simple!

Share our Videos on your Social Networks
Watch our videos on YouTube and share them on Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and your other social
networks.

Email a Friend about The Community Brave Foundation
Email our website to your contacts. Send www.thecommunitybravefoundation.org as a link!

The Community Brave Foundation
                 Website
How it will work
We are setting up The Community Brave Foundation Website to be rolled out in 3 phases. This
allows us to better capture, engage, interact and influence our audience as we prepare to go live
with our Social Media Platform that will serve as the 24/7 online portal for youths who are dealing
with issues related to online bullying, homophobia, transphobia, self-harm and suicide issues.

Phase 1 – Live Date: March 16, 2012
Phase 1 of the website will allow our visitors to engage with our video content that we are
producing. There will be a total of 5 videos made. These are:

Kylie Tribute – Filmed on Location at Sydney Mardi Gras 2012

Gaga Tribute – Filmed on Location at Sydney Mardi Gras 2012

Celebrity Video – Some wonderful celebrities will share their experiences with you about Bullying
and encourage you to participate in our program

Sports Stars Video – Working with some amazing sports teams to send a strong message from these
positive role models about online bullying and International Day against Homophobia (IDAHO – May
17)

Politicians Video – a message of support from our leaders.

Website visitors will be able to connect with Community Brave through our Social Media Platforms
and register to become Community Brave Mentors

The Community Brave Foundation
                 Website
Phase 2 – Live Date: TBA
Phase 2 of the website will include all the features from Phase 1 but also shows support that
Community Brave receives from all the Community Organisations, Businesses, Partners and
community members who help make Community Brave a success.

We also encourage further support from all community organisations to get on board too!

It’s our little way of saying thank you to everyone who makes this project possible.

Phase 3 – Live Date: TBA
Phase 3 is the big one. We are launching our official website which will have lots of information
about us, about whom our Community Brave mentors are and the work we are doing in the
community.

With links to all of our social media platforms, our e-newsletter and our videos, you will be able to
interact and engage with us at any time of the day.

Our website will also be our portal to our network of mentors, so this phase is targeted at the whole
community, but more importantly at Youths who wish to connect with Community Brave.

You will also be able to find lots of resources, details of upcoming events and ‘how-to-guides’ for
everyone! (Youths, Students, Teachers, Parents, Organisations)

There will also be a Smart Device app available in phase 3 for iOS (incl. iPad), Android, Bada,
Blackberry & Windows7!

So it is a little bit of a wait until we get to the final phase of the project (estimating around
September / October 2012) but we will certainly be providing lots of good content until then. So be
sure to put us in your favourites, follow our Social Media pages and stay up to date with how you
can help eradicate Online Bullying, Homophobia, Transphobia and Youth Suicide.

We change the world. Starting Now.

The Community Brave Foundation
                 Website
We would also like to pay special thanks to E-Strategy Group for building our site! Couldn’t have
done it without you!

With the most humble gratefulness,

The Community Brave Team

Connect with us here:

Community Brave on Facebook

Community Brave on Twitter

Community Brave on Google+

Community Brave on YouTube

Community Brave on Tumblr