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We celebrated our 10 year anniversary in November of 2006.
A slideshow of photos is available by clicking on the image above.
YES Institute officially opened its doors as Project YES, a non-profit educational organization. Our new office at Riviera Presbyterian Church gave us more than a place to work. It marked the beginning of an era and a full-time commitment to work toward making the world safe for all youth.
No longer simply a volunteer effort led by founders Connie Barden and Martha Fugate, YES created an entire infrastructure to address the high suicide rate of gay and lesbian youth.
YES is the only organization using authentic communication and education, not advocacy or politics, on orientation and gender topics.
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Our educational efforts are multi-faceted and emphasize training the professionals and staff that interact with youth and their families. We have brought our innovative courses and programs to thousands of teachers and educational administrators, social workers, mental health professionals, police, corporate employees, and clergy across the country.
We provide accredited continuing education to counselors and nursing professionals, and instruct university and graduate-level education students. Our bilingual staff and volunteers have initiated and expanded this work in the Hispanic community.
Our distance learning technology has removed geographic barriers and opened the potential for limitless reach around the globe.
Our unique approach has a ten-year track record of unprecedented results.
"As a youth, YES was a safe space for me to grow. As a young adult, YES was a place to give back. Whoever I am, whoever I was meant to be, YES never said no."
- Allison Tinney, YES Youth Speaker
Martha Fugate, Director Of YES Institute and Connie Barden, RN, MSN, CCRN, YES Institute Board Member
A vision, a commitment, and a call to action so powerful that fear and hesitation are left behind. These are the seeds from which Project YES grew and the underpinnings that sustain it 10 years later.
Our personal “Project” started as a volunteer effort, never intended to become an organization. We began meeting with local community leaders and educators to find out what could be done to keep youth from wanting to kill or harm themselves. In these meetings we discovered two missing pieces to the puzzle of why well-intentioned professionals were not taking effective actions: they lacked education and they were not comfortable talking about gay youth.
This led to the clear focus that was to become YES Institute – providing education and powerful communication that enables adults to serve all youth even when they are uncomfortable or hold conflicted opinions on the subject.
We have taken a stand for a world where no one would be harmed or harm themselves because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. This call to action propels the work of the staff, board, volunteers, and supporters of this organization.
The rewards of this work are many. Lives have been saved; families have been reunited; young people have returned to churches and schools; and joyful futures have been forged from ruinous crisis situations.
There is nothing more enlivening than knowing that due to your efforts, another person’s life will be better. YES Institute creates the opportunity for that experience. We are grateful every day for the chance to participate with the most generous people in the world toward this worthy goal.
YES has been one of the greatest gifts in our lives.
“We need more programs like YES Institute that work with young people in the communities of which they are a part. We need programs like YES Institute that remind us that we all have a responsibility as parents, teachers, clergy, counselors, and friends to ensure the safety and dignity of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender youth.”
- Nontombi Naomi Tutu, director of Race Relations Institute at Fisk College and daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner |
