Name: Lily Faulkner
Social Justice Group: 2020-2021, Mental Health and Teens
Date of Fieldwork: March 4, 2021
Person (people) with whom you met and their title(s) & Name of Organization: Alex Roque
Type of Fieldwork: Interview
What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:
I think that one of the biggest things Alex Roque said is that it is hard to reach out for help as well as giving help. I feel like a lot of people know that it is hard to reach out for help if you need it, especially if you think people wont accept you. But I think that when he talked about how it is hard for people to give help it was alarming and something I hadn’t thought of. He told a story about this girl who was killed by her abusive boyfriend. After this happened the girls parents asked all of her old friends about it. They all said that they thought something weird was going on but they didn’t want to say something. Although this is an extreme case, I think that it shows that if you think you should reach out to someone, it is better that you do it. The parents of this girl made an organization called One Love Foundation. They help people have conversations. I also learned that in the last year the suicide hotline(i think at the Trevor Project) went up 300-400%. And the LGBTQ+ suicide rate went up 20-25% in the last year. I also learned about chosen families, they are the people you choose to be your family and you choose to be around. These can be your friends. The Ali Forney center helps house LGBTQ+ youth who need the help. They were hit with covid and have had to make many changes to their housing facilities to accommodate to covid.
