RALEIGH — Equality NC Foundation (ENCF) was one of five organizations selected to be showcased as a success story in online videos celebrating the diversity of their work. The Gill Foundation, which provides grants to those who work on a variety of issues, has produced the video highlights which shows how ENCF helped to obtain legislation that was LGBT inclusive, a first for a southern state.

The video briefly reviews the multi-year process and educational work leading up to the passage of the School Violence Prevention Act last year, which explicitly protects all North Carollina students from harassment, including LGBT ones, says ENCF. (This was the first time sexual orientation was referenced in state statutes and the first time gender identity was mentioned in laws anywhere in the South, and both were in a positive manner.)

The Gill video also references the Foundation’s involvement in the coalition that spearheaded the Healthy Youth Act, which provides comprehensive, medically-accurate sex ed in the state, as well as efforts that helped ensure North Carolina remains the only state in the South without an anti-gay marriage discrimination amendment in its constitution.

To view the video, visit gillfoundation.org/annual-report/09-annual-report/2009-our-stories. : :