{"id":348616,"date":"2021-07-26T06:05:32","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T20:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=348616"},"modified":"2021-07-26T06:05:32","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T20:05:32","slug":"t-project-forms-junior-advisory-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/t-project-forms-junior-advisory-board\/","title":{"rendered":"T-Project forms junior advisory board"},"content":{"rendered":"
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T-Project founder Tyra Lyn Sablan, standing left, secretary Evonne Sablan, treasurer Leah De Perio, and vice president Shawna Indalecio share a photo with junior advisory board members Pettie Lucas, Zen Ichiro Tomokane, and Jigger Parayaoan after their first meeting at Canton Restaurant on Saturday. (JOSHUA SANTOS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

T-Project\u2014a trans-led nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and creating safe spaces for the CNMI\u2019s LGBT community\u2014is growing, with the formation of a \u201cjunior advisory board\u201d that aims to amplify the voices of the CNMI\u2019s youth and have them directly involved in LGBT issues.<\/p>\n

The junior advisory board\u2014composed of former Marianas High School Pride Club president Zen Ichiro Tomokane, Jigger Parayaoan, Pettie Lucas, and Keo Ngiracheliong\u2014had its first official meeting last Saturday at Canton Restaurant, together with the T-Project\u2019s board members.<\/p>\n

T-Project founder Tyra Lyn Sablan said she looks forward to the future programs the junior board will create. She said the junior board\u2019s new perspectives will greatly improve T-Project moving forward. \u201cWe\u2019re really excited because this gives us an opportunity to amplify the voices of our youth and have them directly involved. …Our [junior advisory board] members will operate under the banner \u2018Nothing About Us Without Us.\u2019 They\u2019ll be the leading authority, and also will give us a fresh and youthful perspective on a lot of programs that we want to launch,\u201d said Sablan.<\/p>\n

Tomokane, Lucas, and Parayaoan are also excited.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to be part of this as I do have a lot of friends that would love to have this position, [that would] love to have their voices and stories shared. Through my privilege, through being able to be here, and being able to represent them, I\u2019m very excited and I\u2019m very glad that I have an opportunity to do so,\u201d said Tomokane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so excited, too, because we\u2019ve never had [anything] like this [before]. It\u2019s nice to see that there\u2019s a change, that everyone can be accepted. Growing up, there were a lot of people that were scared to come out. It\u2019s a good thing that stuff like [T-Project] is going on,\u201d said Lucas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an opportunity that not everyone has, and I\u2019m privileged enough to grow up in a household where I\u2019m accepted for who I am. [Many] people don\u2019t have that, so I\u2019d love to be the voice for them, amply their voices, and voice out their opinions,\u201d said Parayaoan.<\/p>\n

The junior advisory board will have a variety of responsibilities, such as creating education material about LGBT stigma, developing outreach programs, volunteering at community events to raise awareness, and creating educational social media content suitable for their peers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

T-Project\u2014a trans-led nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and creating safe spaces for the CNMI\u2019s LGBT…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":348617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}