A group of young Toronto HIV education mentors have released a series of short films to inspire other youth to facilitate HIV awareness and sexual health workshops in their own communities.
The videos were created and released by the participants of
Empower Youth, a Toronto-based youth-led HIV capacity project. The films are the result of a collaboration between Empower Youth and four community artists: Hisayo Horie, Mahlikah Aweri, Dainty Smith and Rosa Mindreau. They provide frank but playful suggestions on how to use an anti-oppression framework in conjunction with artistic expression to foster HIV and sexual health education.
The first film,
Performing OUT Sex Positivity With Drag and Burlesque, examines how drag and burlesque can be mobilized to start conversations about sex positivity and sexual health. The second,
Using Spoken Word in HIV Prevention Workshops: Poetry as Expression, focuses on the liberative power of spoken word expression. And the third,
What's Cookin'?: How to Facilitate HIV, Sexual Health or Harm Reduction Workshops for Youth, shows how communal cooking can be used as a launching pad for starting the sometimes difficult conversations that emerge around sexual health and harm reduction.
In addition to the three educational films, Empower Youth also released two "Behind the Scenes" videos, which provide insight into the impetus behind the videos and the collaborative process that went into their creation.
The videos were released on Vimeo and on Empower Youth's website in early July and each has since been viewed more than 100 times.
Established in 2011, Empower Youth is the result of a collaboration betweent the Central Toronto Community Health Centres, CATIE, and Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP).
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Empower Youth