Art & Aboriginal Youth Leadership 4 HIV Prevention

Second workshop info for Kettle and Stony Point!

2009-02-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

We are one week away from our second workshop in Kettle and Stony Point!

Check out our Facebook event for more information, or contact Kimberly Bressette, Youth Coordinator at kimberly_desiree@hotmail.com

Update time - Toronto was awesome!

2009-01-05T21:56:00.001-08:00

Our first workshop was a complete success! Many thanks to all the amazing youth who came out and wowed everyone with their ideas, creativity, and sheer talent. We ARE the next seven generations who are going to change the course of HIV in our Aboriginal communities!

Bear with us as we get more photos and some video up here of what went down in Toronto this past October for our first workshop. Be sure to check back soon for that!

These past few months we've been enjoying talking to folks on the conference circuit and re-performing some of our creations at various Native youth events in Toronto. We look forward to moving into year 2 of the Taking Action project and can't wait to see what's in store for us!

Oh and if you haven't joined our Facebook group yet, now is the time! The pics are already up there!

Our official logo designer: WindDancer Designs

2008-09-19T06:53:00.003-07:00

So if you like our awesome logo, then be sure to check out the über-talented logo designer, Tasha Redcrow and her amazing works.

A little about her:
After attending college and attaining a Diploma in MULTIMEDIA DESIGN AND COMMUNICATION, Tasha has been flexing her graphic design skills as well as her raw talent in web-design, and branching further into Interactive Media, Audio/Visual Media, Photography, as well as managing projects, planning events, brokerage/consultation, public relations, and much more.

Be in awe and and stand inspired more by stopping by her website at: www.winddancerdesigns.ca

Taking Action! is heading to Aamjiwnaang and Kettle & Stony Point next!

2008-09-19T06:53:00.002-07:00

Okay, so the workshop itself is a little ways away, however we are thrilled to announce that Kim Bressette from Kettle and Stony Point First Nation is our Youth Coordinator for our second workshop, happening in January 2009!

Welcome to the team, Kim!

Youth Coordinator: Kettle and Stony Point

My name is Kimberly Bressette. I come from the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation. I am of Chippewa and Mohawk descent. Iam currently finishing my final third year of the Child and Youth worker program at Lambton College. I like to travel and learn about my culture and other people's culture as well. I have been to India and hope to travel to Australia for University. I have been working with troubled youth since 2004 and I am very interested in the issues revolving around our youth today and establishing those issues.

We would also like to announce that for those of you living in the Aamjiwnaang and Stony and Kettle Point First Nations, as well as surrounding areas, we will be holding a Community Social on Saturday, October 5th beginning at 6:30pm at the Aamjiwnaang Community Centre. Come out and hear more about the Taking Action! project and have your say for what you want to see happen in the community for our upcoming workshop in January, 2009.

Please note that a bus will be leaving Kettle Point from the North Lambton Community Health Centre to go to Sarnia for the Social at 5:30pm. To reserve your spot on the bus, please contact Roxanne White, Youth Worker at (519)-786-2700.

Hope to see you there!

Article in the Turtle Island Native News

2008-09-19T06:53:00.001-07:00

This is an article that was published in the Turtle Island Native News in June 2008 by our National Youth Coordinator, Jessica Yee, regarding the need for youth-directed health initiatives. She has a weekly column called "Turtle Talk" that focuses on youth issues across Aboriginal communities.

For this week’s column I thought I’d bring the focus back to listening to our youth. It’s pretty clear in my mind that there is a gap between who is designing things for youth to access and what youth are actually receiving in services.

I had a really good reminder of that this week at the Canadian Aboriginal Aids Network’s Annual General Meeting. I was there facilitating a workshop for the Taking Action! Project to Build Aboriginal Youth Leadership in HIV Prevention. We are using the arts and the amazing talent we have in the Aboriginal community to empower our youth to be leaders in the fight against HIV. One of the first exercises I did was to play a famous Tupac Shakur song called “Keep Ya Head Up”. (Tupac is a deceased rapper from New York who effected positive change through his music and lyrics)

Now our audience was mostly service providers, and when I surveyed the audience to see who even liked rap music, the response was pretty negative. I asked people to identify what stereotypes rap music has, and then identify what the stereotypes are that Native people face. The results were pretty similar, yet it was only through reading the lyrics of this song that people began to understand the truth, which was far from what their initial apprehensions were.

“Keep Ya Head Up” is actually about respecting women, the song talks about the many trials and tribulations we go through and the need for violence in our communities to stop. There is a line that says; “And since we all came from a woman/Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman/I wonder why we take from our women/Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?” which is a pretty powerful statement on the roles women take and questions why the cycle of abuse continues.

However on the outside, many people do not see the messaging that this rap song is trying to convey because of the commercialization and misogyny that has taken over much of its mainstream imagery. It’s about breaking down social barriers and stigma, something our people should really know about. Our job now becomes how do we get our youth to do that and write their own lyrics to lead healthy lives? Indeed this exact song IS the kind of messaging we need to be doing in our communities, but a lot of what exists in terms of programming for youth goes nowhere near incorporating these kinds of mediums.

Just because we may not personally like something, does not mean of course that it will not work for the community we are trying to work with. Youth is a community all on its own and yes many of us Native youth out there like rap music. The reluctance to come to terms with that on the part of service providers and design programs that actually include the various media we can relate to is a sincere missed opportunity. What is more, the fact that youth programs are not even being lead by youth and that there are many supposed “champions” of youth causes who have not even consulted with us as to what we actually think (or given us any kind of sustainable opportunity for developing something that speaks to our own community) truly baffles me.

A question was raised during my workshop from an older service provider who said “Well I don’t like rap music and so why should we use it since it has poor English?” to which a youth in the crowd replied “That just shows that you aren’t listening to us. That’s music, we like it, so you need to meet us where WE are at”.

Recently I’ve had several conversations with youth at Six and I’m excited to hear about all the great things that they are up to. This coming July will be the big Youth Rally from the 9th to the 11th and it will be a chance for everyone at Six Nations to come and hear what our future leaders and most sacred gifts from the Creator have to say. I’ll write more details in the coming weeks, but maybe this is also a reminder to approach these young movers and shakers and listen to help make their dreams a reality.

Come out to our first Toronto workshop!

2008-09-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

Calling all Aboriginal youth in Toronto between the ages of 13 and 18! We need YOU to help lead the way to HIV prevention!

We are very excited to announce that our first Taking Action! workshop will be held in Toronto, Ontario from Friday October 17 until Sunday October 19.

Join us each day for some art, hip-hop, story-telling, and cultural pride to help stop the spread of HIV in our Aboriginal communities.

E-mail Jessica Yee, National Youth Coordinator at takingaction4youth@gmail.com for registration forms or more information.

Invite your friends! Right-click and save the poster to pass on to your networks!

Details for Toronto workshop:
Meals and TTC tickets will be provided.
Venue is wheelchair accessible.

When: Friday October 17 until Sunday October 19

Friday dinner begins at 5:30pm
Saturday and Sunday 10am to 6pm
Sunday public exhibition of art from 3pm to 5pm

Where: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)
252 Bloor St. W (at St. George subway), 4th floor

Artists:
Waawaate Fobister (Anishinaabe), theatre
Jennifer Yee (Mohawk), visual artist
Ali Lakhani, hip-hop artist

Keep checking back regularly for updates on your favourite Aboriginal artists who will be performing, prizes to be given away, and way more fun stuff!

Older than 18? Don't hesitate to contact us if you want to volunteer or help out!

Meet the Taking Action! team

2008-09-10T08:18:00.000-07:00

This is us!

National Youth Coordinator

Jessica Yee is the founder and Director of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network and works across North America on issues of healthy sexuality, reproductive justice, cultural competency, and youth empowerment. At 22, she is a proud Mohawk and Indigenous-Chinese woman who is a strong believer in the power of the youth voice, and you can see her activisting it up on sites like SHAMELESS, Racialicious, RABBLE.ca, or writing in the community about sex for Turtle Island Native News and the Kahnawake Eastern Door.

Principal Investigator of Research

Dr. Sarah Flicker is a Professor at York University. Her research is focused on youth activism and HIV prevention and support. She loves to make pottery, bike, hike and play with her cat. His name is Trouble.

Research partner

Melanie Rivers, 7imlaməlwət, is from the Squamish Nation and is the Program Manager for Chee Mamuk, Aboriginal Program, at the BC Centre for Disease Control. Melanie received her Bachelors of Arts in anthropology and psychology from the University of Victoria in 1995. For the last ten years Melanie has traveled to Aboriginal communities and organizations within BC to provide HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infection education in a culturally appropriate way. Melanie also recently coordinated a positive sexual health campaign created by Haisla youth called “Stand True” which you can check out at http://www.youthhavethepower.com/.

Research partner

My name is Nowa Geezhig Kwe (Centre of the Sky Woman) and I am from the Otter Clan. My English name is Christine Smillie-Adjarkwa. I have a H.B.A. and M.I.S.t. from the University of Toronto and am currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, UofT. I currently work as a Consultant on various projects and am the proud mother of three.

Research partner

Randy Jackson is a member of the Chippewas' of Kettle and Stony Point in south-western Ontario. Randy is a qualitative researcher working exclusively in the area of HIV/AIDS in Aboriginal communities - and particularly in the area of "lived experienced". Randy has training in sociology from the University of Ottawa and the University of Manitoba, has worked at the HIV/AIDS community level for over 14 years. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD focused on social justice in the School of Social Work at McMaster University. For fun, Randy loves to travel, enjoys the creative process of photography and keeps fit by jogging.

Research partner

June Larkin teaches courses in Equity Studies and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. She coordinates the Gendering Adolescent AIDS Project (GAAP) which supports youth who have really cool ideas for doing HIV prevention work.

Research partner

Ashley Heaslip is a graduate student in public health sciences at the University of Toronto. She is originally from the wild West Coast of British Columbia and is happiest kayaking or when her head is buried deep in a tidal pool. Ashley has made a few documentaries with youth on the topic of sexual health and recently spent part of the summer making a documentary on a community garden project. She is a big fan of indy rock, injera, and walking bare foot in wet grass.

Research partner

Tracey Prentice is a qualitative community-based researcher with a commitment to social justice. For more than 5 years she has worked with the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network and its partners to better understand the drivers and the impacts of HIV/AIDS on Canadian Aboriginal communities, particularly for youth and women. Tracey has an MA in Anthropology and is currently completing her PhD in Population Health at the University of Ottawa. For fun, Tracey likes to travel, keep fit and explore the world under water (scuba dive).

Research partner

Jean-Paul Restoule is Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) and French-Canadian and a member of the Dokis First Nation. He is Assistant Professor of Aboriginal Education at OISE/UT and father of two children. He likes biking the Don Trail with his toddler and listening to Built to Spill.

We're Taking Action!

2008-07-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

Art, hip-hop, storytelling and cultural pride: Youth will lead the way to HIV prevention in Aboriginal communities

There is so much in Aboriginal history and teachings to support healthy sexuality. And Aboriginal traditions have always recognized the power behind the youth voice. Yet there is a huge lack of culturally relevant information about HIV, which affects Aboriginal youth and their communities at sweeping rates across Canada.

It is time for Aboriginal youth to get involved in creating culturally relevant information that educates to prevent HIV. Unleashing the creative power of youth as health promotion activists is a successful approach, used both in Canada and around the world.

With this in mind, several community and academic partners have developed the Taking Action! research project. It aims to involve Aboriginal youth as HIV prevention leaders, using both traditional art forms and new media approaches. Aboriginal youth, with the help of artists and community partners, will tackle the higher HIV infection rates among members of their communities by developing and showcasing their own creative, art-based responses. Taking Action! is about engaging Aboriginal youth, being proud of our culture, peer-education, and leading the way to stop the spread of HIV! This research project will work with 6 communities in different parts of Canada over the next 3 years to develop youth leadership and involve the community for HIV prevention using the talent of the phenomenal artists we have across our nations.

Please visit us regularly for updates, progress reports and resources on this initiative.