The resource center will offer cultural competency workshops to build allies who recognize homophobia and stand up against it, said Alma Rosa Silva-Banuelos, director of the LQBTQ Resource Center.
“Providing the Safe Zone trainings has been part of our mission to make sure this campus is welcoming and safe for LGBTQ-identified students,” she said. “We really want our students to be able to go to school and not worry about all the other issues that they face when they are in higher education or at college.”
The center’s goal is to provide Safe Zone trainings for all departments on campus, she said, because they want every area on campus to be a Safe Zone.
“Safe Zone trainings help the LGBTQ community on campus because they see themselves reflected across campus,” she said. “When you see a Safe Zone sticker somewhere on campus, you know that (it’s) a space where there is someone that has been trained as a Safe Zone person, and that they can provide support immediately if the LGBTQ Resource Center is not there or if they can’t come to us right away.”
The resource center’s goal is for all UNM staff, faculty, students and student leaders to be trained on campus, she said.
“We want to make sure that people feel culturally competent to support LGBTQ staff, faculty and students across campus,” she said.
Last year the LGBTQ Resource Center trained more than 500 people, she said.
“We offer these trainings annually, especially when the new students are coming in, so that they know that they have permission to be their whole selves,” she said. “We offer some open Safe Zone trainings where people can just sign up and go ... and there are annual trainings that we arrange in collaboration with other departments.”
The LGBTQ Resource Center will be 5 years old in August. Frankie Flores, coordinator of the Safe Zone trainings, said it started out as a student movement.
“Students wanted a place to call home. Students wanted to be visible and wanted to have resources and services specific to the LGBTQ community,” he said. “So as part of our creation, it was also what we now call Safe Zone trainings.”
The LGBTQ Resource Center is also in contact with students who were kicked out of their homes when they came out, he said.
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“We have a lot of students who don’t know how to navigate the coming-out process,” he said. “I think, nation-wide, there are still social, financial, educational and health disparities within the LGBTQ community.”
The LGBTQ Resource Center endeavors to show individuals that LGBTQ people have been present throughout history — that the center’s visitors are not alone and that they have never been alone, he said.
“We also offer free and confidential HIV testing services every second and fourth Tuesday of the month here in the LGBTQ Resource Center,” he said. “It takes 20 minutes, and you know your status within 20 minutes. There are a lot of individuals who do not get tested because they don’t see HIV/AIDS a big deal anymore, and I think that is a big problem.”
Sayyed Shah is the interim news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @mianfawadali.
