Saturday, February 20, 2010

Hope is Ready

Hope is Ready is a Holland, MI based community revitalization organization. Essentially we're a collective of students, alumni, and faculty who are disappointed with the way Hope College's administration handles LGBT students, conversation and lack of protection. We want to ensure that young LGBT students understand that they're valued as much as any heterosexual student. At the moment we're continuing communication with local churches and organizations, like Latin Americans United for Progress in Holland, as well as Hope Reformed Church and Grace Episcopal in Holland, because we believe in ensuring the collaboration and unification of oppressed voices.

We also believe in collaboration within our organizational structure, meaning that the current number of students involved in more 'direct' planning is approximately 20, while the number of students attending our events is about 150, and our e-mail list is over 400. We believe in the power of story. We are pursuing a campus-wide conversation through diverse dialogue, sharing of stories and collaborative energy-giving efforts.

Our main objective as an organization is to create a safe space for conversation in the Hope and Holland community. We want to ensure that open dialogue is not only allowed, but respected, for Hope students, faculty and staff. The current position within the Reformed Church of America on issues of sexual orientation is to be in open dialogue about these issues. We believe that Hope College, as an affiliate of the Reformed Church of America, has a responsibility to be engaging in this open dialogue.

As a part of this process, we are hoping to encourage the administration to fully acknowledge and affiliate with the Gay Straight Forum, currently a non-official student group on Hope's Campus. We are also hoping to ensure that Hope College includes LGBT students under their protection and non-discrimination ordinances, currently they are not included.

Our dream is for the Holland Community and Hope College, as an educational institution that all of us value and love, to be places where everyone can share their story and know that they are equally valued, respected and welcomed.

yours in the journey,
Hope is Ready

1 comment:

  1. I pray for good Christian coversation on this matter. We must pray, talk and seek God's will in a loving manner. To not talk about this issue, or any issue, is to attempt to ignore God's guidance and that would be a sin.

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