El Camino for Minus18
Minus18 provide mental health and peer mentoring support to thousands of same sex attracted and gender diverse young people from all over Australia. The organisation has been meaningful, and even life changing for many people, including Jeremy Martin, who has just given back to Minus18 in a big way.
Growing up in a small town in New Zealand and knowing he was gay from a young age, Jeremy’s only knowledge that LGBTIQ people existed was through TV. He was a very shy kid so it wasn't until he was 19 when he met his first openly gay friend.
The friend introduced Jeremy to a LGBTIQ youth network that he was involved with and Jeremy’s life changed forever. The network allowed him to meet new friends, build confidence to speak about being gay to family and friends, become empowered to stand up to discrimination, learn about issues facing the LGBTIQ community, sexual health education, and to generally feel positive about himself. He felt like he belonged somewhere.
Now, wanting to help another generation of LGBTIQ people, Jeremy has just completed the Camino de Santiago, an almost 800-kilometer pilgrimage across Northern Spain, to raise money for Minus18 so they can continue their work.
Starting in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France on June 27th and completing the journey in Santiago de Compostela, Spain on July 22nd, Jeremy walked an average of over 30 kilometers a day for 25 days, and has raised over $3,400 on the mycause campaign he set up to collect donations.
Although the trek was difficult, Jeremy is happy to report that he enjoyed his time doing the Camino de Santiago and even made some international friends along the way. All the money Jeremy has raised will go to Minus18 so they can help young Australians in the LGBTIQ community be themselves.
If you want to raise money for a cause by doing a challenge, head to mycause.com.au to get started.
See Jeremy’s journey through Spain on his Instagram page.