Northern Mosaic Network
WE support 2SLGBTQIPA+ northerners and their allies in THE Northwest territories.
About
As an organization, the Northern Mosaic Network strives to make communities in the Northwest Territories a safer, more open, more knowledgeable place for all 2SLGBTQIPA+ people and their allies.
We are working to restructure our entire organization to de-centralize from Yellowknife and continue the work we’ve been doing in communities that we’ve been building over the last few years.
We were formerly known as the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife and, before that, It Gets Better Yellowknife.
OUR HISTORY
In 1997, an organization called OutNorth was formed in response to a call for public input on NWT Family Law. For the next decade, OutNorth spent time supporting the 2SLGBTQIPA+ community, mostly through lobbying.
OutNorth successfully lobbied the GNWT to allow for same-sex couples to adopt children (1998), pass the NWT Human Rights Act to include protection against discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity (2002), and allow for same-sex marriage (2005).
OutNorth ceased to exist in 2007. Four years later, in 2011, the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife was founded. Originally called “It Gets Better Yellowknife”, RCYK formed while honouring Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project campaign in the United States, as a response to the multiple young suicides of 2SLGBTQIPA+ people.
Since our foundation in 2011, we’ve worked with national 2SLGBTQIPA+ organizations as NWT representatives, offered peer-mentorship to youth all over the NWT, organized multiple events, supported Gender & Sexuality Alliance clubs in schools, traveled to communities to support Prides, developed educational workshops and resources and opened a Rainbow Youth Centre with free programming each week for 2SLGBTQIPA+ people and their allies to utilize.