Empower Youth, Arts and Activism an HIV/AIDS Arts Activism Manual for Youth by Youth PARTNERS
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EMPOWER YOUTH, ARTS AND ACTIVISM An HIV/AIDS Arts Activism Manual for Youth by Youth PARTNERS Youth Action Network (YAN) is dedicated to helping youth become more informed and actively involved in order to move towards a just and sustainable society. We strongly believe in the ability of youth to affect change in the world. We understand the need for a stronger voice and for greater participation in our local and global communities. The main functions of YAN are to provide information and promote action. YAN is a national non-profit youth organization based in Toronto. Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) brings together youth, community based service providers, policy makers, students and researchers in Canada and South Africa on projects that use participatory approaches to working with young people in relation to sexuality, HIV prevention and AIDS awareness. Our overall goal is the creation of innovative, gender-sensitive HIV education programs that work for youth. GAAP is located at New College, University of Toronto. For more more info, check out www.utgaap.org. Centre for Urban Health Initiatives (CUHI) Through research and partnership building, the Centre for Urban Health Initiatives (CUHI) is helping to create a better understanding of the impact of physical and social environments on the health of urban residents. Located at the University of Toronto, CUHI fosters research development, collaboration and knowledge exchange between individuals committed to urban health, including academic and community researchers, community service providers, policy makers, and health practitioners. Founded in 2004, and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Population and Public Health, CUHI supports scholarship in relevant and emerging areas of urban health, focusing to date on neighbourhoods, food security & urban agriculture, physical environments, youth sexual health, chronic disease prevention & management, environmental health justice and policy pathways for improved & equitable health & health care. The Centre brings together researchers from different disciplines, provides training and mentoring for research in urban health relationships, creates opportunities for knowledge exchange, and builds partnerships between researchers, policy-makers and communities. Need more HIV and/or Hep C information and resources? Contact CATIE toll free at 1-800-263-1638 or online at www.catie.ca. This publication has been printed with assistance from CATIE, 2009. To order a free copy, contact CATIE (CATIE Ordering Centre Catalogue Number ATI-26158). To find out how to get involved with Empower visit us at www.empoweryouth.info or email [email protected]. INTRODUCTION 04 Empower: Youth, Arts and Activism: An Introduction PARTNERS Unpacking the Issues 08 Managing Editor, Sarah Switzer Glossary: AIDS 101 09 Collected and written by Sara Young “Let’s Talk” 10 An article by Ciann Wilson Risk and HIV/AIDS: Individual and Structural Risks 12 A Chart By Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Going Viral with Prise Positive 13 Written by Project Coordinator, Kim Simard EMPOWER FEATURES YOUTH, ARTS Youth In Action: HIV/AIDS Activists, Educators and Change-Shifters AND ACTIVISM Fashioning Change 14 Interview with Nadia Alam, YouthCARE An HIV/AIDS Arts Activism Button Making with SprOUT/Compass Manual for Youth by Youth 18 Interview with Romeo and Jay, Griffin Centre Through our Eyes: PhotoVoice with GAAP a project by 26 Interview with Nidhi Punyarthi Youth Action Network World AIDS Day Tomfoolery: Cabarets for Change Gendering Adolescent 32 Interview with Christina Foisy, The Sense Project: Head & Hands AIDS Prevention AIDS and the Politics of Funding The Centre for Urban 36 Interview with Jennifer Yee Health Initiatives No Pants…No Problem!: Safer Sex Party Organizing 38 Interview with Jessica Whitbread Our Communities, Our Rights: Taking Action on First Nations Issues 44 Interview with Jessica Yee, Native Youth Sexual Health Network Black Youth Leading Together: Innovative HIV Prevention by Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP) 48 Interview with Mary Yehdego, Shani Robertson, and David Lewis-Peart The Person I Want To Be: 53 Collaborative Video Making with the Playing it Safe Project Interview with Lulu Gurney and Aaron Chan, YouthCO AIDS Society FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE HIV/AIDS Resources 59 Collected by Sara Young 63 Credits EMPOWER: YOUTH, ARTS AND ACTIVISM This manual, designed for youth by youth, global and local issues, throwing parties There’s already a wealth of information features a diverse range of projects to raise money and awareness, and out there on HIV/AIDS so we’ve decided put forward by passionate, inspiring creating spaces within communities to to put our efforts elsewhere by featuring and fired-up individuals committed to talk about the issues. And each project inspiring projects and activists. You’ll social change. Each individual, group is accomplished with the help of art! This notice that the focus of each feature and project is committed to working ain’t your stuck-in-a-stuffy-museum art contains an interview with a short through challenges associated with HIV, project either. Youth across the country introduction from yours truly (me!). Each from positive prevention to debunking are using art to challenge, educate, and participant was sent interview questions myths. This includes challenging stigma, question the presence of HIV in their local with simple instructions: informing the public about the ties and global communities: button making, between funding and disease, educating fashion, visual art, collage, web design, “Use this as your soap box! The other youth on the connection between graphic design... the list goes on! questions are purposely broad so that you may have the freedom to answer or challenge them, as you see fit.” Some participants even changed the questions asked! Unlike traditional ’ interviews where the interviewer asks SARAH S TOP TEN REASONS all the questions and waits patiently for a response, I wanted this process to FOR USING THE ARTS be as open and equitable as possible. When created at a community level, art may be I hoped that by providing space and an accessible way of getting the message out! time, it might counteract the challenges 1 that some youth may face by having to access write responses. Added to each of the Different art forms will enable different people to interviews are definitions, fact boxes, and and engage with your message in a variety of ways. 2 in some cases, more resources. Art can be participatory. Making buttons, creating posters, or engaging in street theatre are all ways that you 3 can spread a message with people instead of to people. Dialogue. Art opens up spaces for conversation. Once you’ve organized, produced 4 and performed your work, sit back and let the power of your work take over. Creations live on after their production. After engaging a community in a creative process, the pieces created can later be used as resources, 5 curriculum materials, or awareness posters. Storytelling is powerful. 6 Sick of the same old? Art can help you to challenge yourself 7 to think ‘outside the box’ and try something new. Media Coverage. Because the arts are often visual or performed, arts activism can be 8 a great way of getting your message out to local media – especially independent media. social experience, and depending on Making art can be a Uh, art is fun? materials, cheaper than a night out on the town. 10 4 9 MANAGING EDITOR BY SARAH SWITZER, Want to be a mover and shaker, but concerned about resources? Limited money? Limited Resources? Lack of organizational support? While this is understandably a cause for concern, recognize that some of the greatest, cutting-edge, and change-making work has been achieved through late night discussions around kitchen tables. You probably have access to a really rich network without realizing it. Pool your efforts, and your skills and you’ll be surprised how far you’ve already come. If you need a refresher, or help getting started, check out the (page 59) for some great guides on youth activism. resources section HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE Fired up but don’t know what to do? can be learned by dancing the epidemic? institutionalized discrimination restricted Have inspiration but no means of action? By exploring youth stories through the government efforts from providing lens of a camera? Or getting down and support and resources to the communities This guide is designed for individuals dirty with scissors, magazines and glue? affected. Instead, government inaction who are interested in activating their As Deedee Halleck, film maker and media and passivity meant that public efforts knowledge, passion and skills and want to activist says, art is about “imagining were limited to preventing the virus from fuel these ideas into positive action. More impossible possibilities.” So, take the spreading to the “general population.” specifically, the following pages focus on jump and try something new! As a result, communities most affected using the arts as a catalyst or medium for were forced to organize themselves and HIV/AIDS youth activism. By focusing on A BRIEF HISTORY use their own resources to support and a broad range of arts-based education and In the early 1980s, the HIV epidemic care for the dying, launch early prevention activist efforts organized by committed broke out across gay communities in campaigns using safer sex messaging, and youth, this guide aims to inspire action, major North American cities. At first no protest against government inaction and provoke bursts of insight and dialogue one knew the cause of the mysterious homophobia on providing health services between and among HIV/AIDS youth illness and even after the identification to people living with HIV and research activists across Canada. There are already of HIV in 1984, there was ongoing funding for treatment options. an abundance of general resources controversy over the role of the HIV for youth activism circulating in local virus.