Connecting The Dots: Blueprint for a Technology-based Regional Community Engagement Strategy

Connecting the Dots (CTD) is a regional community engagement strategy that lays out a vision for harnessing the potential and immense value that technology can bring to personal and community development. CTD seeks to improve the health and human rights situation for young people from sexual or gender minorities – including but not limited to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons (LGBT) – by using web/mobile-based platforms and web-apps to support their wellbeing, raise their awareness of human rights and encourage their civic engagement.

For many young people, burgeoning awareness of their sexual orientation and gender identity can be a process shrouded in secrecy and fraught with shame. For some, awareness is clearly defined as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), while for others the journey towards self-knowledge is not so clear-cut. It is at this stage in the lives of young people that community development interventions can provide numerous benefits in terms of improving their well-being – especially through promoting health-seeking behaviour, mutual support and a sense of community – and developing their capacity for community advocacy in the areas of health and human rights.