Brattleboro – Thanks in large part to a $10,000 grant from the Unity Project, Windham County may see an upsurge in organized lgbt activity. Craig Cullinane was hired by the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont to get the conference going.
      So far, the plan is to hold the conference on May 14. Cullinane expects 20-25 participants. Location is still to be decided. The entertainment/inspiration/learning facilitator will be Jeff Bercuvitz, known to many Vermont lgbt organizations from his work with Queer Summit attendees last year.
     Glenn Johnson of T.H.E. Men's Project of the APSV said he wrote the grant with the aim of giving something back to a community that has supported the AIDS project over the years. "We realized there was no other project that was able to apply for this program money, and there's a real need to get more grassroots organizing going."
     "Rural areas such as Windham County offer a myriad of challenges to a strong LGBT community," Cullinane wrote in an email, "including isolation, discrimination, lack of public visibility and acceptance, and homophobia and general silencing of LGBT issues. No LGBT movement in this region has been consistently successful in creating community space, functional and sustainable organizational capacity, or common goals and objectives across identity boundaries."
      It is Cullinane's intention to get proportional representation from all the segments of the community. Three activists will be recruited from the attendees to go to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's "Creating Change" conference next fall.
     For conference information (unavailable at press time), go to glbtconference@yahoo.com, or call 802-579-5056.