On Saturday, April 12th, The Youth Organizing Institute, iNSIDEoUT, and QORDS held Queernival: a Southern Celebration of Youth Liberation. This was our first joint event as NC Queer Youth Power Coalition, the entity that emerged from Teen Convening of 2013.
​Queernival was an outdoor community event featuring performances by youth bands, young drag performers, an open mic, and over 12 booths by queer youth-centered organizations from around the Triangle. High school queer-straight alliances as well as community organizations, like the Pauli Murray Project and Youth Against Rape Culture, hosted booths with carnival games and interactive activities as well as informational literature about their organizations.
NC HEAT and the Youth Organizing Institute co-hosted a booth featuring a wooden target with words like “racism,” “homophobia,” and “school-to-prison pipeline” on it and invited visitors to throw water balloons at it. NC HEAT members also performed in the drag show and MC’ed the event.
Our own liberation is bound by the liberation of others. We will continue to build coalitions and build the movement until we have true youth liberation
