On February 1, 2022, the Speak Up Stand Up Save a Life conference was headlined by Republican Maricopa County Attorney candidate Gina Godbehere and conference co-founder and Arizona Department of Education employee Lily Matos DeVlieux.
Conference session tracks for 6th-12th grade were led by The UBU Project, which has a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion and was founded by a man dedicated to social activism.
UBU Project founder, David Simmons, bio highlights that his focus is social justice, and he uses the arts and education as tools of activism for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Pluralism, LGBTQ/Gender Rights.
The UBU Project has ties to CASEL, the foundation for Transformative SEL. CASEL promotes that SEL is a level for social justice and “equity.”
Also listed as a community resource on Gina Godbehere’s Stand Up Speak Up Conference page is One-n-Ten, an organization that offers gender identity-based programming for youth. The site states that “new youth to drop in at any time and pre-registration is not required.” One-n-Ten also promotes YA drag queen story hours, clinics for kids as young as 12 to legally change their names, and a “binder finder” event.
As a side note, Scottsdale Unified sends kids to this conference:
