After participating in this training, each participant partnered up with another person and a super experienced Empower mentor to further create their own community-specific workshops.  Workshops include many different art mediums: crocheting condom cases, cupcake decorating, photography, poetry, condom-art pins, silk-screening and collage. The workshops are also geared to very specific youth communities: LGTBQ youth, Black Youth,  Street-involved youth, East Asian Youth, youth who use substances, youth in high school, and youth labeled with intellectual disabilities. All workshops are facilitated by peer-facilitators. These workshops will be facilitated in communities over the fall.

Looking for a workshop? Contact sarah@empoweryouth.info for details!

For application and eligibility check out the Get Involved section!

Created by Jessica Khouri, one of GAAP’s practicum students, this video mashes up some of the Empower Projects’ exciting activities to date! And can you believe it? This was Jessica’s first video she ever edited!

January 17, 2011, Toronto, Ontario — Calling all youth peer educators! This release announces the launch of Empower: An HIV Capacity Building Project for Youth by Youth, a one-year project made possible by a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Government of Ontario. Bringing together diverse Toronto youth, Empower will train peer educators to use a community-arts based approach to HIV prevention and other sexual health issues. The project, which will run until December 1, 2011, is a collaboration between Central Toronto Community Health Centres, CATIE, and Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP).

“Education is a key part of HIV prevention,” says Rosario Marchese, Member of Provincial Parliament for Trinity-Spadina,. “Art is an incredible education medium, that’s why Empower is such a powerful tool within our community. If you can grab people’s attention to engage youth about HIV, then your message will be much more effective. Especially when you use youth educators to convey that message.”

Inspired by the success of “Empower: Youth, Arts, and Activism – An HIV/AIDS Arts Activism Manual for Youth by Youth,” this complementary project will train youth to use art as a tool for social change. Participants will include youth of colour, street-involved youth, lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirited, transgender and queer youth, youth living with HIV, and Aboriginal youth. Initially, 10 young people between the ages of 16 and 29, who have shown an interest in HIV issues and community engagement, will be recruited and paired with five peer education mentors. Participants will learn how to use their stories and experiences to create and deliver arts-based workshops and resources to their own communities, and will create digital stories sharing their experiences as HIV peer educators.

As part of our commitment to connecting youth-serving HIV projects, opportunities for networking and knowledge exchange will be coordinated with like-minded programs in the City of Toronto. Aside from the program’s core training initiative, Empower will also work in the following areas:

Community Consultation:

To get feedback on training curriculum and set a plan for ongoing collaboration, we will be hosting a community consultation between youth-serving HIV and sexual health projects in Toronto. This meeting will also be an opportunity for participants and mentors to share creative ideas for arts-based HIV prevention with youth.

Capacity-Building Training and Digital Storytelling:

The eight week-capacity building program will give youth the tools to build skills, make art, and share their digital story. Specific activities will include:

• Attending fieldtrips to local organizations (an “Art Bus Tour”)
• Participating in community arts, knowledge and skill-based workshops (anti-oppression, HIV/AIDS and sexual health 101, harm reduction, facilitation, photography, theatre etc.)
• Creating arts-based community-specific workshops on HIV and sexual health
• Creating digital stories on youth engagement and HIV
• Showcasing work in a community forum

Get Involved!

Are you a community organization working with youth around HIV? We want to hear from you! For more information about the project, please contact Sarah Switzer, Empower Project Coordinator at 416-703-8480, ext. 143 or by email at sswitzer@ctchc.com. We will be posting application information for participants in February, 2011.

To see what we’ve done in the past, check out our website at www.empoweryouth.info or download a copy of Empower: Youth, Arts and Activism through the CATIE ordering centre at www.catie.ca.

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An HIV/AIDS Manual for Youth by Youth

The manual, Empower: Youth, Arts, and Activism, is designed for youth by youth, and features a diverse range of projects put forward by passionate, inspiring and fired-up individuals committed to social change. Each individual, group and project is committed to challenging social and structural issues around HIV and AIDS. From HIV positive youth fighting stigma to peer education projects and safer sex parties, this manual honours the work of communities creating spaces to talk about the issues that matter most.  And, each project is accomplished with the use of art!

This youth, queer, and sex positive manual features work, interviews and hot tips from the following youth activists and programs:

• Prise Positive Take, Montréal
• Fashioning Change, YouthCARE, Toronto
• sprOUT/Compass, Griffin Centre, North Toronto
• PhotoVoice and the Francophone Project, GAAP, Toronto
• The Sense Project: Head & Hands, Montréal
• No Pants No Problem! Safer Sex Party Organizing, from Montréal to Toronto
• Native Youth Sexual Health Network, Turtle Island
• Innovative HIV Prevention by Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP), Toronto
• Playing it Safe Project, YouthCO AIDS Society, Vancouver
• Visual Artist, Jenn Yee.

Partners of Empower: Youth, Arts, and Activism – An HIV/AIDS Arts Activism Manual for
Youth by Youth:
Youth Action Network (YAN)
Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP)
Centre for Urban Health Initiatives (CUHI)

Printing of the manual has been generously supported by CATIE. To order a FREE copy of the manual please visit the CATIE Ordering Centre at www.catie.ca after the launch. CATIE Centre Catalogue Number ATI-26158. Copies also available for download.

For more information about Empower, please visit www.empoweryouth.ca or contact Sarah Switzer, managing editor at sarah@empoweryouth.info.