Nine Years Ago

Nine years ago, The Silver Lining Foundation (SLFTT) staked a claim to protect the lives of young LGBTQI+ people, to empower them and shield them from navigating the world feeling afraid or alone. We committed ourselves to triangulate support, education and advocacy to protect young, queer people. Our mandate to support young people struggling with mental health issues, to educate and sensitise people to the myths and misconceptions of queer existence and to advocate for the development and upkeep of safe spaces for young, queer people has not changed. In fact, it has evolved into a truly intersectional model of change with our recent work of taking a look at bullying from a holistic perspective – from the engagement of school administrations and student support services to the family to peers.

Over the past 9 years, SLFTT has become a highly recognised organisation for the protection and nurturing of young LGBTQI people. In some ways, it feels like only yesterday that we were starting this life-saving work and it is easy to forget how different things were back then. But ever since our founding in 2012, we have strived to provide opportunities for our community to maximise its potential to achieve great things, truly committing ourselves to community service via our multi-pronged approaches to queer existence.

In moments like this, we reflect on the great things we’ve been able to accomplish. We pride ourselves on continuing to raise the bar and set higher standards, not just for our projects and our development as an organisation but for YOU. We have made great things happen for schools, educators, families and LGBTQI youth across the country. Each new programme or initiative presents a fresh opportunity to learn, grow, motivate and innovate, in the hopes to reaffirm our commitment to reach new heights to serve you. And though we’ve managed to attain all these wonderful achievements, which has enabled us to be a much more effective, efficient and accountable organisation, we remain true to our goals, our mission and our mandate. We continue to build close, meaningful and long-term relationships with you – our supporters, with our partners and with the community. We have sought to change the narrative so that we tell no more stories of tragedy, only of triumph.

While we did not have many opportunities to meet with you in the ways that we normally would in 2020, it allowed us to rethink and refocus the necessary work that we have done and reaffirm our resolve to do the work necessary to truly build a society free from discrimination and bullying for our young people in 2021 and beyond. Nine years is a long time for any organisation to have endured, but we remain committed to making our existence meaningful as we continue to tell the stories of actual lived experiences of LGBTQI people. We will continue to form support groups for LGBTQ+ people and their families, conduct research and provide data on bullying trends in our nation’s Secondary schools, call for the end to conversion therapy in all its forms and sensitise educators to issues relating to gender bias and homophobia.

We thank you, Silver Linings, for sticking with us for the past nine years. Our goals remain unchanged, our resolve is strengthened and our focus is undisturbed. We continue to work towards building a society where every LGBTQ+ child and adult feel safe, protected and accepted in their classrooms, living rooms, board rooms, and bedrooms. As we look toward the future, know that we treasure each of you as none of our achievements would have been made possible without your belief and support in our work. We remain incredibly touched, humbled and grateful for your support over the past nine years and we look forward to growing with you in the next coming decade.

We’ll see you soon. Till then, stay healthy, stay happy, stay safe.

Happy Anniversary, Silver Linings!