Updates from the MTW Sites & Team 2019-2021

more than words

Updates from the Sites & Team Check out the recent news and activities from the youth-led fieldsites!

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September

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Imbizo 2021 Special Report: Emily Booker, Pathy Scholar The Networks for Change and Well-being Imbizo 2021 Report, summarizes the virtual Imbizo 2021 event that took place on July 15, 2021. The Imbizo was initially planned to take place face to face over 5 days in Durban, South Africa at the Imbizo Intergenerational, June 29-July 3, 2020. Over 60 individuals from across Canada including 40 Indigenous youth participants were preparing to travel to South Africa and connect with 90 more researchers, community scholars, activists and youth members in Durban. The event was planned to be a mentoring retreat, bringing together Indigenous girls from Canada and South Africa to share and learn from one another. Unfortunately, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, we had to adapt and host an online Imbizo.

NETWORKS FOR

CHANGE

IMBIZO REPORT

AND

WELL-BEING

After 7 years of important work with Indigenous girls and young women in Canada and South Africa, Networks4Change celebrated the work of the youth involved with the project with an Imbizo commemoration. The Imbizo brought together the youth from sites in Canada and South Africa, as well as the supporting partners, community members, aunties and other family members. Over Zoom, we laughed, cried, connected and celebrated the amazing accomplishments of the youth involved.

During the event showcases were presented from South Africa and Canada, highlighting the incredible work being done at all the sites. A new book and podcast Circle Back: Stories of were launched,

July 15, 2021

on their time in Networks4Change and share and learn from one another. The report summarizes the various aspects of the Imbizo, includes links to the media that was presented, and

IMBIZO MEDIA LINKS WATCH

READ

Travel to N4C Sites!

Showcase: GLC/YGLC Song

LISTEN

Showcase: GLC/YGLC Cellphilm Showcase: YIWU Film: Raising Matriarchs

We explored different ways to make ‘what happened’ at the Imbizo accessible to those that couldn’t attend and create recaps for those who were able to take part. Tatianna Sitounis created graphic notes using what was shared and shown during the Imbizo. These notes were thoughtfully created with our youth participants in mind.

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Podcast Clip N4C Celebratory Video

MEDIA & RESOURCES SHARED VIA THE IMBIZO:

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BOOK LAUNCH

Circle Back: Stories of Reflection, Connection and Transformation At the Imbizo, the book youth editors Bongiwe Maome, Hannah Battiste and Andraya (Andie) Daniels introduced the book and spoke about their experiences working on the book. Circle Back is an empowering book that has been created through the combination of works from women and girls in sites located in both South Africa and Indigenous communities in Canada. This publication includes beautiful artwork, poetry and prose addressing the main theme of transformation. The book is split between three main sections These themes are portrayed through the tellings of the women and girls in South Africa and Canada, as well as their artwork and own experiences. Transformation is constantly occurring, yet these past few years have brought more change than ever and with that more transformation on not only the personal level but in the form of social change. Through their stories we are able to hear their voices, connect to their experiences, and understand the transformations they hope to see in the future.

Bongiwe spoke about how the book came to be. She explained that bringing together youth voices for a book started with a newsletter request for submissions from youth in the project.

Following the newsletter publication, there came the idea of building on these submissions by creating a book. In March, there was a call for youth editors who would be responsible for gathering material for the book, reviewing submissions, and encouraging participation by making youth more comfortable work came from the youth who contributed to the book and how proud all the youth should be for their accomplishments and hard work over the last 7 years.

Hannah from Eskasoni spoke next. The position of youth editor the fears and pressures associated with taking on this new role and the importance of taking on challenges. While Hannah spoke openly, messages in the chat were pouring in from South Africa and Canada. Other youth said Hannah’s honest and vulnerable words resonated with them, and they applauded her strength. It was important for Hannah to encourage youth from her community to contribute to the book. She knows how talented, smart and amazing the youth in her community are.

Hannah said that taking on the role of youth editor was not

just for her but for her community, the youth and their futures, noting that the group in Eskasoni is amazing and how proud she is of their hard work.

Andie was the last to speak. Growing up, she always wanted to be a writer and have people read her work. However, before joining Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU), she was shy and scared to share her work. When she joined YIWU, she found her voice and was encouraged to use it. After the publication of Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia, Andie was proud of herself and the accomplishments of her group. The move from author to editor has been exciting. Andie noted that through the YIWU and the opportunities from Networks4Change she was part of something amazing! The experience of being a book editor and working with other youth from Networks4Change was highly positive and she found great support in her co-editors. She thanked them and others who supported the creation of the book.

Circle Back is beautifully designed by Gabrielle Giroux, proud Dene woman from Hatchet Lake, First Nation and founder of Encore Graphics.

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September

BOOK EDITORS

Hannah Battiste BREAK THE SILENCE, BE THE CHANGE ESKASONI, NOVA SCOTA, CANADA My name is Hannah Battiste and I am a young Mi’kmaq woman from Eskasoni, Networks4Change back in 2014. I was a client in mental health services, and my worker at the time asked me if I would like to join. I liked the sound of it so I signed up.

I got to know a lot of the youth in the program and developed good friendships.

Our focus was the community, what we would want to see in the community and what we can do to change our community. We did many things and experiments, we came up with youth building programs, we learned more about safe places within our community, and much more. poetry was when I was in the program. found people who were. These amazing people published me and made me feel important; whatever I said mattered,

Mental health and writing are going to be a part of my life forever; it is something that has saved my life. My top goal in life was to write my own poetry book, to share my story, and to inspire. I am is Rita Joe; I aspire to be as big as her one day. She inspires me to keep going, and to never lose my voice. I lost my voice before, and I will never lose it again.

Bongiwe Maome GIRLS LEADING CHANGE CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

publication. It changed my life forever.

‘encounter’ with the N4C was in 2013; I

Growing up the way that I had to grow up, left a huge scar inside. I did not understand why I would feel and think the way I did, until I discovered what a

Education degree at the then Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (now Nelson Mandela University). I was fresh out of the small rural town of Matatiele, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, where the general pace of progress was particularly slow. This was contrary to the fast pace at which the list of challenges that came with the town’s rurality would continue to expand. Be that as it may, this community forms the backdrop of my upbringing as a young teenage girl. In addition to the challenges that came with growing up in a rural community, I had my share

Networks4Change was not just changing our views and community, it was changing ourselves and our outlook on life, and it was making us feel like we

It was through engaging with the N4C and through the relationships that we formed as Girls Leading Change that my perspective began to change. Being a part of the N4C encouraged me to view my intra- and interpersonal goals through a fresh lens—one that was not muddied by anger, frustration and in some ways, self-loathing. I needed to confronting my own negativity, my own silence, biases, misconceptions, and personal convictions.

an individual. And most remarkably, I also learned to exist and participate as a part of something that is so much more than just myself. I learned how to be a part of a community in a positive way, and instead of allowing myself to be restricted and frustrated by the variety of

open to writing and public speaking.

I did many performances, and I was

and what shocked me the most, is that people were listening.

of challenges in the most personal areas of my life, which contributed to me harbouring a lot of anger and frustration at the world and at myself. I was angry because I wanted things to change, I wanted things to get better, I wanted out of the frustration, and I wanted all of it to happen fast. However, it was becoming increasingly frustrating for me to come to terms with the fact that nothing was going to change—at least not at the pace that I wanted—and not until something

Through the sessions that we would have, the projects that we would undertake and our engagements in general—I

My introduction to the Networks4Change (N4C) is a story of me stumbling upon my own courage at a time when I had least expected it. And in many ways, it marked the beginning of my journey to becoming

write about what went on in my head, and the traumas I went through growing

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were important. I have spent the last few years as an advocate for mental health. I have educated many people about mental illness and change within our community. To this day, I am just as passionate about writing and mental health. I have always wanted to experience what it felt like to be a youth worker and a crisis worker because many times they were the people who helped me, and I have always wanted to give back to my community by being that resource, I am proud to say I have experienced both.

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that form our lived experiences. I learned how to activate and channel my agency with the intent of challenging the status quo. Ultimately, I began to recognize and appreciate that I, too, have a social duty to be an active part of the reimagining of a type of rurality that is conducive to the individual and collective progress of its people. Essentially, the most remarkable take-away from being a part of this look inwards for positive change before expecting it to manifest outwardly.

Because it is not until we hold ourselves accountable to the collective realization of positive social transformation, that we can begin to see the meaningful and sustained manifestation of social change in the world around us. Finally, we all occupy varying spaces in which we can inspire and affect meaningful and lasting change—for me, that space is in the classrooms that I teach—in the hearts of every child whose life I am privileged to share the gifts that the Networks4Change community has so generously shared with me.

September My name is Andraya Daniels and I am a Cree Indigenous woman from Saskatoon Saskatchewan in Treaty

Andie Daniels YOUNG INDIGENOUS WOMEN’S UTOPIA TREATY 6, THE TRADITIONAL HOMELANDS OF THE MÉTIS, SASKATOON, CANADA

introduced to Networks4Change back in 2018 at a conference in Montreal. I have been working with the group Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) since 2017. Since then, we’ve had all of our focus on gender-based violence and on how to help the community.

Since I joined YIWU and worked with Networks4Change, my life has changed.

I started in grade 6 when I was 12 and I didn’t think much of it. I was a very shy person who didn’t know much. I am now in grade 10 and I can publicly speak and speak on things that need to be spoken

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on. I use my voice when necessary and when I know what I am talking about.

All the work on gender-based violence has shaped me into the hardworking and independent woman I am today.

My mental health and my struggles have changed tremendously over these past years with ups and downs, but at the end of the day, I was a part of something that was amazing. Knowing I could teach younger girls about the world and what’s to come was truly inspiring, and the work I have done by myself has been truly amazing. I can use my voice in so many places and I am so thankful for that and the opportunities Networks4Change has given me.

PODCAST LAUNCH

At the Imbizo 2021 “Circle Back: The Podcast Jonathon Cruikshank, Catherine interns for and Networks4Change, worked with youth to create “Circle Back: The Podcast.”

The podcast presents the pieces from the book, Connection and Transformation in an accessible audio format, further amplifying youth voices in creative ways.

At the Imbizo, Catherine and Sumaya explained the process of creating the podcast and shared a powerful clip of “Enough is Enough” by Elethu Ntsethe.

In the podcast, you can hear recordings of the girls reading their written work aloud. The process of creating the podcast was designed to be as easy and stress-free as possible for the youth.

Youth were asked to make recordings of themselves reading their poetry, prose or discussing their art. Through this process, youth were able to take time to record themselves and go through the process at their own pace until they

there, youth submitted their recordings to the team and Jonathon led the work to meet Claudia and Lebo, and hear from the editors of Circle Back, Hannah, Bongi, and Andie to learn about the outstanding work they have done on the podcast and in Networks4Change as a whole. More episodes will be coming out soon!

More Spoken Word Work!

Following their experience recording for the Circle Back podcast, Nokulunga Mazibuko, a member of the Social Ills Fighters (Loskop, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa), has created a YouTube channel to share her spoken word poetry.

She shares her poem “My Culture, My Roots” dedicated to Heritage Day (24 September, 2021) and performed at the Avenue Road Res Talent show.

The line “I am not an African because I was born in Africa, but because Africa is born in my heart” rings out powerfully.

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N4C & MTW Fieldsites

TIMELINE OF YOUTHLED WORK

YOUNG GIRLS LEADING LEADERS FOR YOUNG CHANGE (YGLC) WOMEN’S SUCCESS (L4YWS)

BREAK THE SILENCE, BE THE CHANGE

GIRLS LEADING CHANGE (GLC)

CHILD AND YOUTH CARE CENTRE HUB

2014

2014

2016

2016

2016

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa

North Western University, Gauteng, Western Cape, Free State, South Africa

Sandisulwazi Secondary School, Paterson, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Khethani, Winterton, KwaZuluNatal Province, South Africa

Kjipuktuk & Eskasoni, Nova Scotia, Canada

GIRLS EXPRESSING THEMSELVES THROUGH ART (GET ART)

YOUNG INDIGENOUS WOMEN’S UTOPIA (YIWU)

SOCIAL ILLS FIGHTERS (SIFS)

SISTERS RISING (NOW KINSHIP RISING)

GENDER ACTIVISTS

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Summer interns at McGill spent time reviewing the history of Networks4Change and they were inspired to create visual timelines and biographies to communicate the evolution of youth-led work at the sites. The Timeline of Youth-led Work (created by Saruul Khishigjargal) shows the history of the Networks4Change youth groups, and the Site Bios (developed by Johnathon Cruickshank and Saruul Khishigjargal) introduce the different active groups working in Canada and South Africa, highlighting their accomplishments.

2017

2017

2017

2016

2016

University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada

Treaty 6, The Traditional Homeland of the Métis, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Loskop, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa

ləkwəŋən & W ̱ SÁNEĆ homelands, colonially known as British Columbia, Canada

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September

COVID19 TIMELINES

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In the run up to the Imbizo, we found ourselves navigating very different local circumstances at each field site, especially related to the ever changing challenges, safety measures and government protocols. As we engaged with these challenges and the different capacities of youth and community scholars at each site, Summer Interns Saruul Khishigjargal and Johnathon Cruickshank mapped out some of the major milestones of work and restrictions under COVID-19.

These beautiful visual timelines have highlighted the determination and resiliency of youth within the Networks4Change movement, who have continued to make artwork and be involved in activism during some of the most challenging moments of their lives. You can see a selection of timelines below reflecting the situation in South Africa and specific Canadian sites as part of More Than Words.

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September COVID-19TIMELINE: TREATY 6 I TRADJTIONAL HOMELAND OF Tl-IE METIS / SASKATOON (BOOK)

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Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia The Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) Girls Group speaks back to gender-based and colonial violence.

Since 2017 they have been making films, sewing ribbon skirts, leading workshops, winning awards and writing a book. To ensure sustainability they welcomed a new generation of younger sisters into their circle (2.0).

Together they embarked on a muralmaking journey to share their message and leave a lasting legacy in Treaty 6/ The Traditional Homeland of the Métis/ Saskatoon. Experience YIWU’s process in their beautiful film: ohpikihihcik okawiymaw onikanewa: Raising Matriarchs

Above & Below: Screenshots from the film.

A mural reveal event took place on June 27, 2021 bringing together the girls, aunties, family and community members. This was a very emotional and meaningful celebration. The older girls in the group were gifted with Star Blankets to mark their graduation, on so many levels of life.

The CREATOR! SAVE THE MATRIARCH mural (see next page) was unveiled on Broadway Avenue, in a wealthy and predominantly white area of Saskatoon. YIWU hope their work will inspire thoughtful conversations and engagement around the issues of safety and freedom of Indigenous youth in Treaty 6/The Traditional Homeland of the Métis/Saskatoon and beyond.

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Creator Save the Matriarch Mural

Eskasoni (Canada) Linda Liebenberg

Expanding connections: An update on our memorial garden for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and news of more exciting projects Gwe’ everyone!

Warm greetings from Eskasoni. It’s been quite the summer, and our memorial garden for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls continues to grow well! Our plans for the Grand Mother Moon Ceremony space have been approved and work will begin on it shortly. Together with this building, our signage is about to go up. We have also started adding live edge garden benches. They are individually hand made and reflect the individual people who have been lost 20

over the years, and the beauty that they have left behind, but that we also miss in their absence. We will also be building more benches from cinder blocks and wood. These strong seats for reflection will honour the strength of our collective community as well as the strength we can find in our collective humanity when we are mindful of our engagement with one another and with nature.

In the spring we also mentioned Hannah’s first collection of poetry. We have an exciting update in this regard: she has a publishing agreement in place and we hope to see the book in press in time for Christmas! It will be available for purchase on many online retail stores, but once it has been published, we will definitely share the link. The book will be called Out of Darkness. The poems are grouped to tell Hannah’s life story so far. The book includes poetry prompts for readers, and many wonderful sketches by the poet herself. Her work on this volume

is inspiring other youth on the team to engage with their own talents and produce similar products … so watch this space! In this interim, here is a sneak peak of an early version of the cover.

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9th McGill International Cellphim Festival The 9th McGill International Cellphilm Festival centred on the theme of Transformation:

Congratulations to the girls from Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia on this amazing achievement!

—N4C

▶ What does it mean to you and in your circumstances? ▶ How does it manifest in your school, community, environment or everyday life?

In total, the festival received 53 submissions from 75 international participants hailing from four continents and eight countries. A huge thank you to CODE, the sponsor of the festival and Collette Anton for coordinating the event. The festival this year featured a keynote address from Dr. Sarah Switzer entitled “Transforming How We Gather: in COVID-19.”

Congratulations to the winners of the 5 categories! Watch the winning cellphilms here.

“Why Participatory Video/Cellphilming and Why Now” Symposium Creative Content Award THE LABYRINTH OF DEPRESSION Laya Najwa Zoukari

Best Production Award BREAKING THE MOULD

Video/Cellphilming and Why Now?” The symposium, organized by Aaron Rosenberg, brought together many ideas and people, facilitating a meeting point for sharing experiences and insights between some of the pioneering researchers in this communities through participatory video or cellphilming. Read the full report from the symposium here.

OPENING PANEL: “THE BIRTH OF CELLPHILM IS IN AFRICA”

Chair: Dr. Claudia Mitchell

Best Group Award AFTER TOMORROW Déborah Maia de Lima and Juliana Ponguta

People’s Choice Award KITTIES TRANSFORM ALMA’S LIFE Alma Sadati

Young Film Makers Award EXPLAINING OUR PARANOIA WALKING ALONE AS INDIGENOUS GIRLS IN TREATY 6

Speakers: Keyan Tomaselli, Naydene de Lange, Relebohile Moletsane, and Alcina Sitoe PARTICIPATORY VIDEO & CELLPHILMING ROUNDTABLE: WHY NOW?

Chair: Steven Schnoor Speakers: Juan Carlos Sandoval Rivera, Katie MacEntee, Casey Burkholder, Josh Schwab Cartas, and Ramson Karmushu NOT JUST A TOOLKIT

Chair: Nesa Bandarchia Rashti Speakers: Jen Thompson, Lisa Starr, Nicole D’Souza, Michaela Field, Darshan Daryanani, Chloe Garcia, Maria Ezcurra, and Mindy Carter CELLPHILM FOR SOCIAL/ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE

Chair: Aron Rosenberg Speakers: Vanessa Gold, Salima Punjani, Mitchell McLarnon, Francisco Reyes Pegeuro, and Jayne Malenfant 27

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Orange Shirt Day / National Day for Truth and Reconciliation On 30th national holiday in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Since 2013 this day has been known as Orange Shirt Day, bringing awareness to the history and legacies of the residential school system. Orange Shirt Day originates from the story of Phyllis Webstad from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation and her experiences at St. Joseph’s Residential School in Williams Lake, British Columbia.

To honour this day, a coalition of Indigenous and nonIndigenous peoples at McGill University collaborated on the the 3rd Annual We Will Walk Together/Skàtne Entewathahìta event, focusing on the theme of Hope and Healing. A thoughtful

facilitated thoughtfully by John Sylliboy (Mi’kmaw educator, co-founder Wabanaki Two-Spirit Alliance—W2SA). You can access the event recording here! Musical highlights included Nina Segalowitz’s drumming and performance of the Dene Healing Song, and children of St. Edmund Elementary School’s performance of Tiny Hands, led by music teacher Jennifer Hayden.

Following the event an in-person student-led solidarity march took place, starting on-campus at McGill and journeying through the city. It was beautiful to see the engagement and the with just as much commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action.

Below, Left to Right: Some of the We Will Walk Together event organisers. John Sylliboy, Nesa Bandarchian Rashti, Ramy Gorgis, Tatianna Sitounis, Claudia Mitchell, Mindy Carter, Cruickshank, Andee Shuster, Leann Brown, Saruul Khishigjargal, and Darshan Daryanani. Photo credit: John Sylliboy.

Inner Circle: The beginnings of the student-led solidarity march on rue McTavish, Mcgill University campus. Photo credit: John Sylliboy.

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September

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New Publications Authors: The Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia Group, Cindy Moccasin, Jessica McNab, Catherine Vanner, Sarah Flicker, Jennifer Altenberg, and Kari-Dawn Wuttunee We adopt an autoethnographic approach to share critical group about our experiences attending the 2019 International Girlhood Studies Association conference at the University of Notre Dame (IGSA@ND). Moments of inspiration included sharing our work and connecting with local Indigenous youth.

Challenging moments included feeling isolated and excluded since the only girls present at the conference were Indigenous

Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal Volume 14, Issue 2 Where Are All the Girls and Indigenous People at IGSA@ND?

and recommendations to help future conference organizers and participants think through the politics and possibilities of meaningful expanded stakeholder inclusion at academic meetings. This article has now been made open access.

on!

g So n i m o

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September

Berghahn Series: Transnational Girlhoods Series Editors: Claudia Mitchell, McGill University Bodil Formark, Umea University Ann Smith, McGill University Heather Switzer, Arizona State University

research and activism, will help to advance the research and activism agenda by publishing fullinterdisciplinary and global perspective. International in scope, the series will draw on a vibrant network of girlhood scholars already active across North America, Europe, Russia, Oceania, and Africa, while forging connections with new activist and scholarly communities.

Volume 1

Volume 2

Edited by Ann Smith

Edited by:

How are girls represented in written and graphic texts, and how do these representations inform our understanding of girlhood? In this volume, contributors examine the girl in the text in order to explore a range of perspectives on girlhood across borders and in relation to their positionality. In literary and transactional texts, girls are presented as heroes who

Relebohile Moletsane, Lisa Wiebesiek, Astrid Treffry-Goatley, and April Mandrona

of liberating pedagogical practice and educational activism, and as catalysts for discussions of the relationship between desire and ethics. In these varied chapters, a new notion of transnationalism emerges, one rooted not only in the process through which borders between nation-states become more porous, but through which cultural and ethnic imperatives become permeable.

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Girls and young women, particularly those from rural and Indigenous communities around the world, face some of the most adverse social issues in the world despite the existence of protective laws and international treaties. Ethical Practice in Participatory Visual Research with Girls explores the potential of participatory visual method (PVM) for girls and young women in these communities, presenting and critiquing the everyday ethical dilemmas visual researchers face and the strategies Indigenous and rural contexts.

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Volume 3

Volume 4

Edited by Maria A. Vogel and Linda Arnell

Edited by Emily R. Aguiló-Pérez

In recent decades, large-scale social changes have taken place in Europe. Ranging from neoliberal social policies to globalization

Since her creation in 1959, Barbie has become an icon of femininity to girls all over the world. In this study, author Emily R. Aguiló-Pérez focuses on a group of multigenerational Puerto Rican women and girls, exploring how playing with Barbie dolls as children has impacted their lives. By documenting the often-complicated relationships girls have with Barbie dolls, Aguiló-Pérez highlights the ways through which women and girls construct their own identities in relation to femininity, body image, race, and nationalism through Barbie play.

affected the conditions in which girls shape their lives. Living Like a Girl explores the relationship between changing social conditions and girls’ agency, with a particular focus on social services such as school programs and compulsory institutional care. The contributions in this collected volume seek to expand our understanding of contemporary European girlhood by demonstrating how social problems are managed in different cultural contexts, political and social systems.

“They Abduct Us and Rape Us”: Adolescents’ Participatory Visual Reflections of their Vulnerability to Sexual Violence in South African Townships Authors: Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi, Relebohile Moletsane, Zaynab Essack The abduction and sexual violation of adolescents, especially in township contexts, has increasingly made headlines in South Africa. These incidents are evocative of jackrolling, a phenomenon that plagued townships during the apartheid upheavals in the late 1980s. The abduction of adolescents on their school journeys has been reported in several South African

townships. In this paper, we report on a study in which we used participatory visual methods (i.e., cellphilms: short videos made with cellphones) to explore how 19 adolescent girls and boys living in the Inanda, Ntuzuma, and KwaMashu township sexual violence. Although the question was broad, our analysis of the visual data suggests that adolescents believed that their vulnerability to abduction and rape was almost inevitable. As such, in their cellphilms, they chose to portray their risk and vulnerability to abduction, rape, and even murder on their daily journeys to and from school. We found that through this methodology, adolescents were able to illustrate and/or articulate their fear of sexual violence. For them, violence was an inescapable reality that created fear and helplessness. This underscores the need for interventions, including the provision of safe scholar transport and visible policing in the community.

This article is open access for a limited time.

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September

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The Circle Expands: Extending the Movement Networks4Change has inspired a movement of youth-led work to address gender inequality and gender-based violence. As the IPaSS partnership sunsets, the Networks4Change movement continues and expands in scope through a host of projects and initiatives in Canada and South Africa and beyond, that build on participatory arts-based approaches. Here is a small sample of the exciting work that continues in the effort to achieve safety and freedom for youth everywhere.

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Pathways2Equity: Youth-led, Indigenous-Focussed, Gender-Transformative, Arts-based Approaches to Challenging Gender Norms in Addressing Gender-based Violence PI: Claudia Mitchell | Co-Investigators: Lisa Starr, Dennis Wendt, Jordan Koch, Lee Schaeffer, Neil Andersson, Linda Liebenberg, Marnina Gonick, Jen Altenberg, and Sarach Flicker Pathways2Equity uses gender-transformative approaches to dismantle harmful gender norms, create safer relationships and advance towards ending gender-based violence (GBV) which has been exacerbated by COVID-19. Driven by Indigenous youth (groups of girls and young women working alongside groups of boys and young men, in all their diversity) we build upon ongoing arts-based work with Indigenous girls in Eskasoni, Rankin Inlet, Treaty 6/Traditional Homeland engage boys in work needed to disrupt broader social norms and structures that contribute to harmful gender stereotypes, inequality and ultimately fuel GBV.

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Comprehensive Sexuality Education Curriculum in Rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: A Community-based Participatory Approach to Contextually Relevant Programming PI: Relebohile Moletsane & Xolile Msimanga | Co-Investigators: Naydene de Lange, Astrid Treffry-Goatley, Lisa Wiebesiek, Nkonzo Mkhize This project builds on the dynamic partnership built by the Networks4Change project between the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Xoli Msimanga, the co-founder and director of Thembalethu province of KwaZulu-Natal. In this partnership project, we will apply the same participatory visual methodology to engage with adolescent learners (boys and girls), parents and caregivers, and Life Orientation teachers to understand the needs of adolescents in relation to their sexual and reproductive health and rights and to explore how comprehensive sexuality education might be implemented in a way that is meaningful to adolescents and relevant to this context.

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WE-SAY: Youth, Gender and Education: Changing Landscapes of Work in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa PI: Barbara Crossouard | Co-Investigators: Naydene de Lange, Astrid Treffry-Goatley, Lisa Wiebesiek, Nkonzo Mkhize Combining life history and visual participatory methodologies, this project explores the livelihoods of rural female youth with different educational trajectories and the imaginaries they hold of work. By involving youth researchers in Nigeria and South Africa, both fractured by deep social inequalities, the project aims to develop situated understandings of the values and norms within these imaginaries and through participatory methods to support youth in developing new conceptual frameworks that challenge historic gender and other structural inequalities in the ways different work is valued. The group of young women will use these visual materials to develop a booklet about work and education of young women in rural communities and how they would like to see this change. The visual images and productions will be exhibited for different audiences and used to initiate dialogue about the links between education and young women’s work in rural communities.

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September

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More Than Words in Addressing Sexual and Gender-based Violence: A Dialogue on the Impact of Indigenous-focused Youth-led Engagement Through the Arts on Families and Communities

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PI: Claudia Mitchell | Co-Investigators: Neil Andersson, Mindy Carter, Jaswant Guzder, Shaheen Shariff, Lisa Starr, Linda Liebenberg, Sarah Flicker, Marnina Gonick, and Jen Altenberg (MTW) uses art and intergenerational mentoring to empower Indigenous young women, girls and LGBTQ2+ youth to address sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and support survivors, families, and communities. MTW builds on the project Networks for .

This project laid the foundation for collaboration and successful partnering over the last six years by building skills and capacity for Indigenous young people to respond to SGBV in their own communities through arts-based approaches.

The project is driven by Indigenous youth in three sites: Treaty 6/The Traditional Homeland of the Métis/Saskatoon (Sask), Rankin Inlet (Nvt) and Eskasoni on Cape Breton Island (N.S). Youth groups chose their own approaches, corresponding with their personal, cultural, and community values. Each site is youth-led, Indigenous-focussed, survivor-centred and supported by local Indigenous community scholars. Youth are trained in arts-based methods to develop leadership and facilitation skills so they may share their knowledge of SGBV and survivor support with their peers and community. Youth-led community events focus on participatory artmaking and sharing, and create spaces where survivors, families and community members can gather, share, and heal.

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Girls’ Clubs: Building the Capacity of Girls to Address Gender Inequality and GenderBased Violence In and Around their Schools and Communities PI: Relebohile Moletsane | Co-Investigators: Naydene de Lange, Astrid Treffry-Goatley, Lisa Wiebesiek, Nkonzo Mkhize Networks4Change project, aims to build the capacity of and support 12 to 15 young women teachers to establish and facilitate girls’ clubs as safe spaces for girls and young women in their schools. These champion teachers will invite girls they teach to join an extracurricular girls’ club and will serve as accessible mentors to girls who join the clubs. The clubs will use participatory visual methodology to enable discussion, learning, and the co-production of knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), gender mentorship, interactive training in life skills, career development, and goal setting; build the girls’ skills in digital media and the creative arts as modes of expression and communication about issues that impact their lives; and build girls’ capacity to use their visual artefacts to stimulate schoolcommunity dialogue about gender inequality, SRHR, GBV, and strategies for addressing them.

Participatory Research on Agency in Education in Mali (PREAM)

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PI: Claudia Mitchell | Co-Investigators: Kattie Lussier, Blane Leslie Harvey, Lisa Starr, Myriam Gervais, and Myriam Denov PREAM seeks to investigate the relationship between agency and educational participation in is to enhance the responsiveness of policies and programs to the educational rights and aspirations objectives of the research are to: 1. Improve the availability of credible, crisis context-relevant and participatory research on the relationship between adolescent girls’ agency and education, and 2. Strengthen the use of evidence on agency and education by advocates of quality education for adolescents, especially girls, in crisis-affected areas.

The study builds on the use of participatory methodologies such as drawing and cellphilming. It is being conducted in Segou and Mopti regions of Mali by McGill University and the Université des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Bamako in close collaboration with Plan Canada and Plan Mali who are implementing an education in emergencies program in these regions and will assist the researchers in terms of access.

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September

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Thank You Summer Interns at McGill!

Much of the creative work attached to the Imbizo presented in this Newsletter is thanks to the 2021 McGill Interns.

Over the summer of 2021, 8 Interns from McGill’s Faculty of Arts and Global Health Scholars programs worked to support projects and initiatives of Claudia Mitchell and the Participatory Culture Lab. Networks4Change and Imbizo activities including the creation of the site bios, the Circle Back book, and the Podcast. Saruul Khishigjargal and Johnathon Cruickshank set out supporting , but also helped with many aspects of Networks4Change Imbizo including video creation, knowledge mobilization, production of the Circle Back Podcast, and logistical elements of the Imbizo event. Theodore Chiara and Tatianna Sitounis supported research study, the International Cellphilm Festival and ‘Making Connections’ activities of the Participatory Cultures Lab. Tatianna

Nesa Bandarchian Rashti shares her reflections with the team.

Nesa collaborated closely with Theo and Tatianna during the internship.

also helped produce creative and accessible graphic notes from what was shown and shared at the Imbizo. Ishika Obeegadoo and Elina Qureshi supported the Institute of Human Development & Well-being (IHDW) and Participatory Research on Education and Agency in Mali (PREAM), a 3-year international collaboration between McGill University and the Université des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Bamako (ULSHB) in partnership with Plan International Canada and Plan International Mali.

Special thanks to Avril Torres Rios, Leann Brown, Nesa Bandarchian Rashti, and Ramy Gorgis for coordinating the 2001 Summer Internship program.

Collaboration with the team of interns took place remotely over the summer, with members placed all over Canada, USA one another in-person on-campus on Friday, 17th September the internship and all the wonderful work. It was a very local Intern Imbizo!

Sumaya shares her best memory of the summer internship: The N4C Imbizo!

Thank you, Emily!

L to R: Darshan Daryanani, Claudia Mitchell, Elina Qureshi, Sumaya Soufi, Catherine Dillman, Hani Sadati, Johnathon Cruickshank, Leann Brown, Nesa Bandarchian Rashti, Tatianna Sitounis, Saruul Khishigjargal, Ishika Obeegadoo, Ramy Gorgis. Theodore Chiara was missed that day.

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Special thanks goes to Emily Booker for all of her support for Networks4Change.

March

Hope for the Future!

Expressions from the Sites

By Avril Rios

Girls Leading Change

activities. Our reality has changed and for many, not only does it mean confronting new problems and struggles, but also the discovery of new activities, abilities, and joys. For this reason, we invited girls and young women from the various sites of Networks4Change on how their lives have been transformed, and what changes and transformations they would like to see.

Our focus for this section of the newsletter is on the writing and art productions submitted by the girls and young women themselves. Enjoy their creative work on the following pages and discover more about the amazing girls and young women who are part of Networks4Change in Canada and South Africa! found abandoned. We are losing many of our sisters, mothers, and children.

WHAT CHANGES AND TRANSFORMATIONS WOULD I LIKE TO SEE?

WHAT CHANGES AND TRANSFORMATIONS AM I SEEING?

▶ There is still a lot more to be done like sentencing anyone who violates another due to gender. ▶ I would like to see more awareness programmes especially in the rural areas where people’s voices are not heard or do not have platform. ▶ Children from an early age should be taught about GBV and Help Care Centres they can go to in case they become victims or know of victims of GBV.

After the President announced GBV being a pandemic, we started seeing some changes and developments:

Zethu Jiyana I saw this poster one day, saying “Men fear ghosts and women fear men”, the same men who are supposed to be protectors and I realized the future is not so bright.

I heard of young innocent women and children being killed, people like Uyinene Mrwetyana, Tshegofatso Pule, Kwasa and Karabo, the list is endless.

In 2019/2020 we experienced a wave of killing of women and children. The President stated that we are facing two pandemics at the same time namely gender-based violence (GBV) and COVID-19. So, while we were losing family and friends due to COVID-19, we were also worried about the safety of women and children. Every day we are hearing of women who have been raped and killed brutally, children disappearing, and their bodies later 2

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▶ We hear songs composed against this GBV pandemic, such as Madoda Sabelani ▶ We have policies being implemented against GBV ▶ Radio stations are taking notice ▶ Television programmes are taking notice, creating adverts with celebrity males relaying messages about women and children abuse ▶ We see increasingly effective campaigns against GBV (#RealMenDontAbuse) ▶ The government is taking more notice and giving support to victims of GBV ▶ We saw a launch of Uyinene Foundation all in support of women

In all this we can see that more work still needs to be done. Each person has a duty, every platform you have, should be used to make a change.

I, Zethu, therefore pledge that in the platforms that I can access I will address these issues so as to raise more awareness and give support to victims of this pandemic, until we have less and eventually no cases of GBV!

March

Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia

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Nicoletta Daniels COVID-19 has affected me in many ways by death, online school, highs and lows, and birthdays.During COVID-19 we were all stuck at home and because of that I wasn’t able to see my grandparents and family and friends and online school started and nobody was allowed to leave. Then my birthday came around and it wasn’t getting any better so my whole family came by my house and sang.

Now the part I don’t like to talk about, death. I have lost a lot of people this year but the person I loved the most, my papa Noel, he was the most important person to me and he was always happy and he loved everyone he was never mad or sad and then my Uncle Jon. He was so funny and happy all the time and then my Uncle Wheese. He never had a bad bone in he’s body he was funny and loving.

Now my highs and my lows: one of my highs was my Granny and Auntie Mona recovery from COVID-19 and my second nephew was born (Brixton James Miller); and my lows were losing three people this year and it was hard but I know they are in a way better place now and happily watching over me and my family.

Kellie Kakum, Utopia 2.0

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March

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2020 A TEENAGE CREE CANADIAN POINTOFVIEW Andie Daniels The year started like every other year Although there was bush fires, Royal family drama, passing of Kobe Bryant I thought “wow what a bad start” But everything went on as normal, still in school, I hate school But at the end of the day it was a normal year And then March 13, 2020 hit I heard of “ corona” but I knew it wouldn’t hit Canada And when it did they sent us out of school, woo hoo a two-week break Unfortunately we didn’t know, that that wasn’t the case Eventually, the email came, we were done school for the year and we mercy passed To 2020 … thank you for the growth To 2020 … thank you for the experience To 2020 … thank you for the good and bad times To 2020 …. you sucked Lockdown?

I hated it at first Sleeping, painting, and eating everyday It wasn’t enough for me One day I woke up and started discovering March to June became the best months of my life Self care, writing, and walking I was finally happy I adapted to it, I woke up and lived differently everyday Watched and fought for social justice issues like BLM I suffered loss and became a person I didn’t like I started in school and failed a lot Then got a job I completely lost myself to the pandemic To 2020 … thank you for the growth To 2020 … thank you for the experience To 2020 … thank you for the good and bad times To 2020 … you sucked 2020 was crazy but I cannot be mad I was happy at a time and proud of myself I did everything I could and even wore a damn mask everyday 2020 was something you only experience once and i’m okay with that To 2020 …

I loved you but happy it’s 2021

Gabby Daniels COVID-19 affected me, a young nehiywak girl in so many ways. During this pandemic I’ve lost and gained, I’ve hit low and I’ve climbed back to the top, and I’ve learned to be more grateful for the life I’ve been given. I was able to get my driver’s license right before everything was shutdown, and then I self-esteem down a lot because I thought I was the worst driver in history; eventually I got over it though. school and doing Zoom classes, I really enjoyed getting to be in the comfort of my own home while still in class. At this point I thought my Grade 11 schoolwork was easy and what I wanted. It was getting tougher to have motivation and continue with my classes. I was lucky to have bunch and made me happy. I realized I missed my cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents a lot. All my life I’ve been so close to both sides of my family, we would have so many birthday parties and dinners all together on my father’s side; and on my mom’s we would drive down to Nevada to visit them a couple of times a year. Not being able to see them made me quite lonely. I became closer to my 2 sisters and little brother, we did what In May I went to a BLM rally and stood with so many loving people who thought George Floyd deserved better. Seeing all this racial injustice made me feel like people of colour, would never get any justice. In my head I wondered why there was so much hate in this world. lots with the 2 little girls I babysat, hanging out with my siblings, and starting to somewhat see family again.

My life was going great and I was happy.

Then September came and it was time to decide if I wanted to go back to school, or take Grade 12 classes online. I took the online option, which was one of the 13

March worst mistakes I’ve ever made. I had no motivation at all to do my classes, I started to fall behind. It went on like this for about 2 months. My life was hectic and draining, and then tragedy struck my family. My grandparents, auntie, and 2 cousins caught COVID-19. With me being a family person I was so scared and worried for my kin, I didn’t want anyone to have this sickness and here my family had it. They recovered but my Papa was hospitalized because of other health problems. Our Papa meant so much to us and not being able to call him or talk to him really took a toll on our family. On December 18th around 7pm we learned our Papa wouldn’t make it through the night. My family was a mess, we all stood outside the hospital seeing as we couldn’t all be in the room with him. We were allowed 2 at a time in the room, and I’m happy I could see him one last time.

I thanked him for everything he did for my parents, for my siblings, and myself.

I was lucky to have him in my life, seeing him suffer that night made me feel even more sad than I ever was. I saw my my grandma. We lost him in the early morning of December 19th. It took my family a lot of time to heal and mourn, we never thought we would have to say goodbye to such an amazing person.

It’s been 2 months since he’s left to the spirit world to be with our other family.

We’ve been there for our Granny so much because she doesn’t want to be alone.

About 2ish weeks ago we received a call saying my mom’s brother was on life support after a complication in surgery, this struck us all so fast we couldn’t even react, he died a couple hours later after that call. My mom was hurt and so were me and my siblings and dad. My uncle was a bright soul who always lit up a room. Since he lived in the States we couldn’t go down, my own mother couldn’t even mourn for her brother. It hurt so bad to know we couldn’t be down with our family, that we couldn’t see him one last time. A week later my moms oldest brother, suddenly passed. I have never seen my mom so heartbroken. At this point we had to go down and mourn with my moms side. We drove to Nevada and stayed for about a week and a half.

We’re on our way back to Canada as I type this. My Papa and uncles are now at rest, and so are my family’s. From now on I plan to be grateful for everyday a couple last words. Hug and checkup on the important people in your life, live everyday to the fullest, take some time for yourself, stand for what you believe in, and stay safe.

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Before COVID-19: Swimming Clean Sports Programs After COVID-19:

Rylan Lafreniere

Sad Using Depressed Drained

March

Eskasoni Hannah Batiste My entire life, I never imagined that I would be good enough to make it this far.

I worked as hard as I could, just to get told my work was never going to be good enough or positive enough. I wrote down many stories and poetry that I hid from everyone, because I was too afraid to fail.

My biggest inspiration in life was to share my story through my poetry, and to inspire those who can relate. I’ve worked for years trying to get it right, trying to take my time and be patient.

I let a lot of things take over my life in the process, but I am grateful that I went through what I went through, because it has made me who I am today, time in my life, I am ready for whatever the future has in store for me. My new journey is only beginning.

These are some of the poems from Hannah’s poetry book. We will make an announcement when the book will be published.

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Journey In the beginning there are roads Then you don’t know which way to go You stop and wonder Then you hear the thunder You’re standing in between crossroads Unsure of which path to take Breathing in the summer air Wind blowing in your unwashed hair Wearing the same dress from decades ago Your journey grows stronger but you get weaker The night sky falls You are freezing and wheezing The autumn leaves are coming Then you start stumbling with nowhere else to go The whistle in the wind blows Your eyes and heart follow the noise The stop lights catch your attention You wonder what the world would be like If you only took a different path You wish to turn back time Deep breath in and you open your eyes In the beginning there are bumpy roads You know which ways to go You never stop but always wonder Then you hear the familiar thunder But just to leave it all behind And let it go

—Hannah Batiste

Sisters Rising

I was thinking of all the things that we carry from the history of our people. All the

Ruth Underwood Tsawout First Nation

so hard to not be put down any more than we have been. When we can put aside our struggles and move forward. Not to move on and forget but, to discover more of who we are.

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March

Treaty 6, Saskatoon (Canada) Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) Jen Altenberg

Taanshii kiyawow annoosh!

Our landscapes determine our worldview and we are all rejoicing that the snow is starting to melt and the sun is shining again. We are just coming out of a deep freeze for the last two weeks with temperatures dropping below -50!

Remember, our landscapes determine our worldview and so we acknowledge the lessons in those harsh, cold winter days and nights. The Young Indigneous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) is pleased to report our interactions from Treaty 6 and the homeland of the Métis in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Showing Appreciation We would like to begin by giving a shout-out to our Aunties and loved ones who have sat, Google-chatted, and zoomed with us over the last six months of being isolated and in restrictions at home to stay safe from COVID-19. We continue to be thankful for our time to gather together. For many of us girls from YIWU, 2020 was a year full of loss, grieving, and change. While we welcomed some change, other changes were very hard to accept.

Even though COVID-19 tried to keep us apart, we have creatively been continuing to connect and engage with our new circle of girls from Utopia 2.0.

We would like to welcome and introduce Kellie, Harmony, Melody, Rylan, Sikwan, D’lia, Nicolletta, Tara, and Milo into our larger circle of Network4Change and the More Than Words family.

(Right): 1st virtual planning session for YIWU Mural Workshop, January 2021 (Far Right): Brainstorming for Mural Workshop, February 2021 16

Indspire Award Winning the national Indspire organizational “Guiding the Journey” Award for Indigenous educators was very special. Along with the honor and recognition, we received a financial award. We wanted to put these dollars towards community action. The girls decided to create self-love care packages full of art supplies, kokum scarves, and other products they felt would lift young people’s spirits during this time. We created twenty gift bags and delivered them to:

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It is always good to watch the girls give back to the community and take care of each other in times of need. Reciprocity is one of our core values in YIWU, as we would say nīkāni tipahikē. Everyone has something to give.

(Left): Kellie (Below): Nicoletta

▶ our newest members, ▶ some older members from our

first year together who needed some extra love, ▶ young people at the new youth shelter in Saskatoon, and ▶ community members accessing Prairie Harm Reduction, our safeconsumption site.

Mural Workshop YIWU just wrapped up a 2-day workshop to begin planning and conceptualizing our mural project.

This culminating action will allow the girls to make and leave their mark on our community. They will speak back to many of the spaces we marked as unsafe in our very first cellphilm actions. The murals will create spaces in our streets that will give others in our community visual messages of hope, healing, and resistance. This project will

Opening selflove carepacks, January 2021

connect the intergenerational work that women and girls from our community have been fighting to protect and preserve. It is because of this work that we get to continue to journey and learn how to respect ourselves and awaken the powers within us. We are no longer accepting shaming attitudes or teachings. We want to speak back to the violence in our community and the girls of Utopia and their new little sisters continue to create movements that give each of us strength, courage, and hope for a better tomorrow.

March

Congratulations!

Congratulations to YIWU who were recently awarded the Indspire Guiding the Journey Award (2020) which recognises Indigenous educators and organisations who have made valuable contributions to community-based education and honour the principles of Indigenous knowledge.

YIWU had the opportunity to share their knowledge and leadership with Indigenous educators and organisations across Canada at the 2020 Indspire National Gathering where they delivered their “Community Arts as a Source of Resistance”

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workshop. They also developed a lesson plan which is available in both English and French.

Indspire’s Former President and CEO, Roberta Jamieson, presented the girls with their award and talked with them about their work and experiences. As an Indigenous woman of many ‘firsts’; the first Aboriginal woman to earn a law degree in Canada, the first nonParliamentarian to be appointed an ex-officio member of a special House of Commons committee on Indian self-government, the first Aboriginal Commissioner of the Indian Commission of Ontario, and the first woman appointed Ontario’s Ombudsman—it

was an honour for YIWU and Roberta to hold space together and be mutually inspired. We are continually inspired by Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia!

Rankin Inlet (Canada) Jennica Alhda Barcial Due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, the scheduled Rankin Inlet GET ART weekend workshops that were supposed to occur during November was cancelled. The two youth mentors Haily May Ussak and Julia Ussak decided to deliver the program remotely so that youth could still participate in the art program.

Children aged 8-14 were asked to submit a photo on the Rankin Inlet News Facebook page that displayed how they were keeping safe during the pandemic. Photo entries were submitted to the Facebook page where their names were entered into the draw.

Ten lucky winners received a $100 gift card to the local grocery store in town.

It was the first time, the program’s youth mentors, Haily May Ussak and Julia Ussak, led a program for the community.

Haily May was very pleased with the result and loved seeing all of the children’s projects. Julia Ussak believes it gave children a fun challenge to keep themselves busy while everyone was at home.

There were over 70 entries, with over 50 likes and over 160 comments on the Facebook post. Pictures shared ranged from children cooking, painting, sewing, and learning to work on seal and caribou skin. The youth mentors are excited to hold their next online project in March.

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March

Eskasoni (Canada) Growing Connections: An Update on Our Memorial Garden for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Gwe’ everyone!

Warm greetings from a winter wonderland in Eskasoni. Despite the weather we have been continuing our work on the memorial garden Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls through the winter. In the fall we installed the sweat lodge, tee-pee, and sacred fire pit. We also received funding from Commemorating the History and Legacy of Residential Schools, Commemorate Canada. This funding allows us to expand on the space for ceremony, adding change rooms for men and women and a storage shed for wood, as well as a Grand Mother Moon Ceremony space. We hope that work will begin on these in the next few weeks. When spring arrives, we should be able to add the finishing touches to the garden!

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We have also been gifted a revision to our website! Many thanks to April Mandrona for linking our project with NASCAD’s student internship program and Alexia Mitchell. Alexia has done a wonderful job of re-envisioning our on-line presence and showcasing our garden. You can visit our space here.

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In addition to our group work, some of us have been continuing with individual projects and pursuits. Hannah’s contribution to the newsletter is an example of this, as she works on her first collection of poetry, hopefully to be published later this year!

March

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#16DaysofActivism A Virtual Campaign in a Virtual World: Realizing and Reflecting on the #16DaysofActivism Darshan Daryanani | McGill University Every year, the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign runs from the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November) and ends on the International Human Rights Day (10 December). Since 1991, over 6,000 organizations from 187 countries have participated in this campaign and contributed in their own unique and meaningful ways. At the end of 2020, for 16 consecutive days, the More Than Words and Networks4Change projects, as part of the Participatory Cultures Lab, launched a joint campaign, inviting academics, researchers, community organizations, youth leaders and supporters to join us and discover how Indigenous youth are addressing gender-based violence through arts-based, participatory work from eight project sites based in South Africa and Canada.

The cross-channel virtual campaign was launched on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and is also compiled here, as part of an off-social-media campaign summary. Through 27 multimedia posts, the campaign strategically and creatively introduced the More Than Words and Networks4Change projects, featured the art and activism of four Canadian and four South African sites, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women (Canada), along with the key national and international days. The campaign showcased the ethos of these youthgroups as well as their amazing accomplishments ranging from book publications and awards to the creation of an educational memorial garden, and activism leading to the signing of a protocol that ends child, early and forced marriage in Loskop, South Africa.

In generating a purpose for the virtual campaigns, we recognized that social media movements will help to validate the issues related to sexual and genderbased violence (SGBV), as well as our roles in contributing to change. This campaign creates awareness and draws attention to actions that have been taken in addressing these important 24

An Interactive Campaign Summary of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence and complex issues; it allows various audiences to learn about gender-based violence even when they are not actively engaged with the issue, and gives an opportunity to highlight what we can each do in our work, communities, and lives to eliminate the disproportionate violence faced by women, girls and LGBTQ2 folks.

individuals to the cause and greatly increases the reach of the campaign.

Examples include: #GenerationEquality, #OrangeTheWorld, #16DaysOfActivism, and #16Days.

The everyday wins of gaining new followers, shares, likes, comments and reach of posts encourage all of us to continue to increase and promote awareness about the work and missions

of information—but our personal and individual conversations with the whole team, community and stakeholders are where we achieve real engagement.

There were such enthusiastic responses from academics and community scholars

websites which contain more academic information, and bring genuine conversations surrounding important and sensitive topics into the mainstream, thereby achieving the campaign’s goal. that connect groups and like-minded

Our efforts on social media may be limited by the algorithms and advertisements that take away from the conversation

They were excited to see the work of youth participants celebrated in such concise, creative, accessible and shareable ways—making it easier to share these celebratory pieces with the youth themselves. We hope to continue

March to foster collaboration and increase social capital between academics and community organizations alike; engage with future campaigns and allow us to continue to work closely with partners and allies to demand action and accountability from governments.

Even excitingly, the campaign was also replicated on a bulletin board at St. Marguerite School, Treaty 6 and the traditional homeland of the Métis (Saskatoon). Jennifer Altenberg, Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia group leader and a Grade 7 Teacher at St. Marguerite, took the opportunity to take the campaign off-line to the school hallways. The printed calendar of posts

was displayed, and the youth had the opportunity to respond by pinning their own thoughts and comments. It was great to see this work exist in such a dynamic educational context—giving a different kind of life to the campaign.

More important than social media analytics, we are inspired by these meaningful conversations, and how much action follows from this campaign.

Clearly, social media is not the answer to ending gender-based violence. However, shedding light on such initiatives inspires groups and individuals to tackle the root causes through policymaking, community engagement and participatory methods to make the lives

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of girls and young women safer. With social media, we have a powerful tool at content all over the world in seconds— but more importantly, such intentional and planned social media campaigns allow us to check-in and collaborate with our established real-world communities.

As we work together on knowledge share, we connect, we celebrate, we create content, we make meaning and we are inspired to keep going and incite more real-world work and activism.

See also our response to the Sexual Violence Research Initiative’s request for input on 16 Days of Activism Campaigns.

Posters of the 16 Days Campaign on a bulletin board at St. Marguerite School, Treaty 6 and the traditional homeland of the Métis (Saskatoon)

‘The Girl in the Pandemic’ Webinar October 20, 2020 | McGill University The Girl in the Pandemic Webinar, cosponsored by the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University and the Institute for Human Development and Well-being brought together speakers across projects in three countries, South Africa, Ethiopia and Canada (Quebec) addressing critical issues related to gender inequalities and young people.

Speakers included: Relebohile Moletsane from Networks4Change, Eleni Negash and Hannah Pugh from the Agricultural Transformation Through Stronger Vocational Education, and Jennifer Thompson and Katherine Frohlich from Myriagone at the University of Montreal.

The speakers highlighted the precariousness of girls and young women in a time of distancing, but also some of the ways that girls and young women are taking up the issues, something that was highlighted in the presentation

by Marianne Dupré-Deslandes, one of the young people who participated in a

cellphilm-making project at the University of Montreal. To hear the full recording of this lively session, visit: https://mcgill.ca/x/oPT 25

March

Welcome!

style and physical expression. A promising, but very understudied area of SGBV in arts-based intervention research is the idea of focusing on the of body movement on Indigenous cultures and the crucial role of the body in SGBV contexts, there is a paucity the use of body-based approaches in

We welcome Dr. Deby Maia as a new Postdoctoral Fellow attached to More Than Words and Networks4Change

Postdoctoral Project Although efforts have been made to reduce sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) towards Indigenous women, the Committee on Citizen Relations of the Assemblée National du Québec (2018) states clearly that “current initiatives are not enough”. In an SGBV context, the body plays a critical role: 77% of Indigenous victims of violence reported long-term psychological and physical effects such as body image, movement

Congratulations!

addressing issues around and preventing sexual violence against Indigenous girls and young women. What I hope to be able to do in this postdoctoral research is to provide ways to implement body work as an arts-based tool with Indigenous girls and young women as part of a social change framework, allowing leadership to be built among Indigenous youth as mentors to younger community members; and helping to develop body-and-movement interventions for preventing SGBV against Indigenous girls and young women. Using participatory methodologies, I intend to assure that research participants are ‘hands-on’ actors in the research process and will be able to use the results to apply to their own lives and lives of other community members.

Biography I was born in Brazil in a place where an intimate connection with nature, with spirituality and with diverse ethnic groups is what we call “life”. African, Portuguese and Indigenous traditions have always been part of my everyday life which has allowed me to develop a vision of human beings as a wide community as well as a great respect

We are delighted to share the good news that Emily Booker has been selected as a young leader for the 2021-22 Pathy Foundation Fellowship at Coady International Institute! Emily will be developing a Girl Group to Empower Youth in North Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Meet the 2021-2022 fellows here!

The online Girl Group will connect 14 to 18, including but not limited to and any other youth female/femme North Vancouver. Facilitated by Emily, this online girl group will engage in artsbased activities and feature workshops and presentations from female/femme-

Emily Booker, Pathy Fellow 2021-2022 26

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for our particularities. Regarding formal studies, I have a PhD in Études et pratiques des arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) and in Performing Arts at the Universidade Federal da Bahia (Brazil) with the thesis “L’enseignement de la danse de María Fux: Fondements et pratiques.”

My Masters’ degree was developed in the Clinical Psychology and Culture program at the Universidade de Brasília (Brazil) and I have an undergraduate and a graduate degree in Psychology from the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (Brazil).

Since 2002 I have been joining dance groups in Brazil and Argentina as a dancer, percussion player and researcher (Brazilian Dances Group: Baiadô and the Dance / Theater Group Anônimos da Silva). I am also a member of the Global Directory Who’s Who in Dance (Conseil International de la Danse—UNESCO).

My formal educational and practices background include: ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶

Researchers in Brazilian Dances, Contemporary Dance Techniques, Contact—Improvisation, Martial Arts; Dance Movement Therapy, Danzaterapia (María Fux), Somatic Education Methods as Resources for Education, ▶ Artistic Creation, ▶ Sociocultural Inclusion, and ▶ Illness Prevention.

My practice emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to Embodiment, Community Psychology, increasing of creativity and innovation in formal and informal education systems in Brazil and abroad.

gender justice in the community. The initiative will create a space that will empower youth in their gender identity and counter sexism in the community.

In the largest cohort yet, six fellows from the previously deferred 2020-21 program will join ten new fellows for a cohort of 16. Each fellow will work with a community with which they have a connection, to foster sustainable positive social change in Canada and around the world. Community initiatives have been adapted to the current global context, and will be responsive to changes in COVID-19 spread and response in local communities around the globe.

The Pathy Family Foundation supports each fellow with funding of up to $40,000.

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Publications The Lives of Girls and Young Women in the Time of COVID-19 (Volume 13: Issue 3) Editors: Claudia Mitchell & Ann Smith In December, 2020 Girlhood Studies published an issue centered around The Lives of Girls and Young Women in the Time of COVID-19. The pandemic has exacerbated gender inequalities and negative affected health. Girls and young women around the world are facing increasing levels of precariousness as a result of health measures taken to curb the transmission of the virus. The lack of privacy in the households makes it technology driven programming carried out by NGOs. In some cases, working to combat sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) could potentially do more harm than good.

[Themed Issue] Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal

These were some of the issues raised when the editors put out a call for articles in May, 2020. It was some months after the pandemic started and the editors were wondering who would be able to do empirical research or write

articles while doing home schooling. In spite of all expectations, many proposals were received!

This issue of Girlhood Studies comprehends a collection of articles representing the situation of girls and young women in different countries, including Russia, China, US, Canada, Jordan, Kenya, and Bangladesh. The authors address a wide range of concerns and use innovative methods and tools such as using online platforms to do participatory visual work or conduct interviews, or testing out new genres of representation such as a visual novella or comic books.

In recognition of International Women’s Day, Berghahn Journals is offering free access to Girlhood Studies until March 15. To access, use code IWD21. Visit: https://mcgill.ca/x/owk

Table of Contents Editorial The Lives of Girls and Young Women in the Time of COVID-19

“Some Things Just Won’t Go Back:” Teen Girls’ Online Dating Relationships during COVID-19

Claudia Mitchell & Ann Smith

Alanna Goldstein & Sarah Flicker

Articles Russian Girls Construct Freedom and Safety in Pandemic Times Olga Zdravomyslova & Elena Onegina Left Behind by COVID-19: Experiences of “Left-Behind” Girls in Rural China Jue Wang The Girlhood Project: Pivoting our Model with Girls During COVID-19 Cheryl Weiner, Kathryn Van Demark, Sarah Doyle, Jocelyn Martinez, Fia Walklet, & Amy Rutstein-Riley

Ghostly Presences OUT THERE: Transgender Girls and Their Families in the Time of COVID Sally Campbell Galman Kokums to the Ikswêsisisak: COVID-19 and Urban Métis Girls and Young Women Carly Jones, Renée Monchalin, Cheryllee Bourgeois, & Janet Smylie Girls, Homelessness, and COVID-19: The Urgent Need for Research Action Kaitlin Shwan, Erin Dej, & Alicia Versteegh

Girls’ Transitions to Adulthood during COVID-19 Meghan Bellerose, Maryama Diaw, Jessie Pinchoff, Beth Kangwana, & Karen Austrian Social Isolation and Disrupted Privacy: Impacts of COVID-19 on Adolescent Girls in Humanitarian Contexts Sarah Baird, Sarah Alheiwidi, Rebecca Dutton, Khadija Mitu, Erin Oakley, Tassew Woldehanna, & Nicola Jones Visual Essay Intersectional Pandemics in Bangladesh: The Effects of COVID-19 on Girls Nasrin Siddiqa

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March

Girls and Representations of Rape Culture (Volume 14, Issue 1) Guest Editor: Roxanne Harde, University of Alberta As Roxanne Harde, the guest editor of this special issue made clear in her call for proposals: culture “ Rape a society or

generally denotes environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse. While this description seems straightforward, people nonetheless have difficulty in recognizing what rape culture is, what it is not, or where and how it operates.

It is not, for example, only about rape, nor is it about criminalizing alternative or non-normative sexual practices. It is not about disempowering women and girls and criminalizing men. Recognizing rape culture means understanding that it informs sexual and social life and understanding that unless we change the way we think, act, and speak about females and about sexuality, nothing will

Mentoring: A Literature Review Leann Brown | McGill University Developed through the More Than Words and Networks4Change projects, the literature review highlights the academic and gray literature produced on mentoring, with a special consideration of mentoring for Indigenous youth, and especially mentoring in relation to adolescent girls and young women. The production of this literature review is situated in the work done by girls, women and the other individuals and groups associated with both Networks4Change and More Than Words.Developed by Emily Booker the review is divided into four main parts:

Part One: Why Mentoring Highlig have been uncovered in the literature.

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change. But that sea-change may come about through the power of girls’ agency and their ability to be political actors and reshape the societies in which they live.

Sexual Abuse of Girls in PostRevolutionary Mexico: Between Legitimation and Punishment

This special issue of Girlhood Studies, with its particular emphasis on literary and visual representations, presents us with articles that use a range of methodological approaches to analyze how girls and young women react to and against, are represented as part of, and are affected by such representations of rape culture.

(Para)normalizing Rape Culture: Possession as Rape in Young Adult Paranormal Romance

In recognition of International Women’s Day, Berghahn Journals is offering free access to Girlhood Studies until March 15. To access, use code IWD21: https://mcgill.ca/x/oPN

Table of Contents Consent is not as Simple as Tea: Student Activism against Rape Culture

Susana Sosenski

Annika Herb Fantasies of the Good Life: Responding to Rape Culture in 13 Reasons Why Cameron Greensmith & Joceyln Sakal Froese through Contemporary American Teen Films Michele Meek Addressing Rape Culture through Folktale Adaptation in Malaysian Young Adult Literature Sharifah Aishah Osman Visual Essay

Brittany Adams The Saint Mary’s Rape Chant: A Discourse Analysis of Media Coverage Lyndsay Anderson & Marnina Gonick “Speak with Girls, Not for Them”: Supporting Girls’ Action Against Rape Culture

Outwardly Katy Lewis Not That Grateful: Survivor Resistance in Rape Culture Janet Wesselius

Alexe Bernier & Sarah Winstanley

Part Two: The Nuts and Bolts of the Mentoring Literature Breaks down the many different types of mentoring, mentoring settings, and important components of creating mentoring programs from the literature.

Part Three: Considerations from Mentoring Marginalized and Indigenous Youth

more than words

mentoring literature review with a focus on indigenous girls and young women

Engages with the more recent body of literature on mentoring programs created for marginalized youth.

Part Four: Intergenerational Mentoring and Indigenous Girls Highlights the importance of intergenerational mentoring for Indigenous girls, Auntyship and Aunty mentoring models, peer-to-peer mentoring between Indigenous girls and young women, and lessons learned from the different ways mentoring has been engaged with by Indigenous girls in Canada and South Africa.

The Mentoring Literature Review with a Focus on Indigenous Girls and Young Women can be found here: https://mcgill.ca/x/oPp

March

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Girlfesto

circles wi t

Circles Within Circles: Girlfesto ‘MEKITE’TASULTIEK!

EJIKLA’TESNEN E’PIT TA’N TELI-MANUT!’

Quebec | 8-11 Peskewiku’s 2018 Montebello Girlfesto

ircles nc hi

Wula Girlsfesto wejiaq Circles within Circles: Transnational Perspectives on Youth-led Approaches to Addressing Gender-Based Violence, mawio’miek Montebello, Canada.

Peskewiku’s 8-11, 2018. Nekmok kisitu’tit wula Girlsfesto kespna’q kaqianuek mawio’mi.

Wula mawio’mi mawo’lutki’k epite’ji’jk aq e’pite’sk, aq nuji-kina’mate’wk, kaplnu’laq wejita’jik Kanata, South Africa, Kenya, Sweden aq Russia.

Wesku’tasikip ta’n tel-lukutijik epite’ji’jk aq e’pite’sk ta’n tleyultijik, mawlukutimk, aq ‘Speaking Back,’ wejiaq 7 countryi’l. Wula mawio’mi na wujit L’nu’skwe’jaq aq aklasie’wi’swkwaq, klaman kisi maw-teskatultinew, a’tukutinew, kina’muwenew, aq kina’masultinew amaliteken wujit ta’n su’tasik manut e’pit. Msit tami etek ta’n tel-manut e’pit, aq colonialism aq patriarchy wiaqa’tmn, miamujpa ankite’tmn elt ta’n wen teli-ankite’lsit nekm.

Wula Sisters Rising Group of Girls and Young Women kisitu’tit wula amaliteken wujit ta’n teli-kepmite’tmi’tit l’tasin piley tputlutaqnn aq piley apoqnmasuti.

Wesku’tmi’tit ta’n teli mekite’tasit e’pit, aq wesku’tasik ta’n teli-kina’matimk aq welqatmnew. Aq l’tasik kina’masuti.

Weja’tasik Montebello Girlfesto: Indigenous Young Women’s Utopia (Treaty 6 Saskatchewan, Canada) | Sisters’ Rising (British Columbia, Canada) | Eskasoni (Nova Scotia, Canada) | Girls Leading Change (South Africa) | Young Girls Leading Change (South Africa) | Gender Activists (South Africa) | Social Ills Fighters (South Africa) | Leaders for Young Women’s Success (South Africa) | Ange School (Sweden) | McGill University | University of Victoria | Mount Saint Vincent University | York University | Nelson Mandela University | University of KwaZulu-Natal | First Nations University | G(irls)20 | United Nations Girls Education Initiative | Canadian Women’s Foundation | Pauktuutit (Inuit Women of Canada) | Gorbachev Foundation (Russia) | Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights | Trudeau Foundation Scholars

The Girlfesto is now available in Mi’kmaq! This is one of the languages spoken in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada and the Gaspé Peninsula of Québec. We are grateful to Michael R. Denny, Red Road Project Coordinator, for translating the Girlfesto to Mi’kmaq. This is an effort to preserve the culture and allow the document to be known by more people in their own language!

With this new translation, the Girlfesto is accessible in ten languages … and there are more to come!

If you would like to translate the Girlfesto to another language, contact us at: avril.riostorres@mcgill.ca.

Current translated Girlfestos: ▶ Afrikaans ▶ English ▶ English in Dyslexie font

▶ French ▶ Inuktituk ▶ isiZulu

▶ Kanien’kéha ▶ Mi’kmaq ▶ Russian

▶ Swedish ▶ Mohawk ▶ Xhosa

To access the Girlfesto in Mi’kmaq,visit: https://mcgill.ca/x/oPS For all the versions of the Girlfesto, visit: https://mcgill.ca/x/oP5

Girlfesto in Dyslexie Font Sabrina Gill This newest iteration of the Girlfesto is written in English, but has been designed and restructured to be more accessible.

It uses a font called ‘Dyslexie’, which is a font developed by dyslexic graphic designer Christian Boer as his graduate project at the University of Twente. The typeface was designed to make words more legible and readable for people with Dyslexia.

Dyslexia is by the International Dyslexia Association as:

“ Ais

specific learning disability that neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.

a heavier emphasis on the bottom of each letter, which prevents letters from being turned upside down. There is wider spacing, which avoids a crowding effect. Letters sit on a mild incline, making them easier to distinguish.

The Dyslexie font has won several awards for its innovation towards a more inclusive world, such as the 2011 Smart Future Minds Awards and the 2013 Design to Improve Life Awards. However, it is important to remember that every person experiences dyslexia in different ways, and that this font is not necessarily the ideal solution for all dyslexic individuals. Many prefer other fonts or methods of reading text.

The Networks4Change team is committed to making the Girlfesto as accessible and widely available as possible, as we have done so through various translations. We hope to continue growing as an inclusive organisation, and believe that having the Girlfesto available in the Dyslexie font is a step in the right direction.

You can access the Girlfesto in Dyslexie font here: https://mcgill.ca/x/oPq

Circles Within Circles: Girlfesto Vision

‘WE ARE UNCOMPROMISING! WE WILL END GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE!’

‘We want freedom, not just safety.’

Quebec | 8-11 July 2018

Our vision for an ideal world without gender- based violence demands valorization of

Girlfesto

the principles of Equity, Equality, Justice and Dignity for all people. This vision is characterized by practices that celebrate diversity, using open communication and active listening. It is illustrated by the following image, created by a group of girls and young women participating in Circles Within Circles, to show the kind of world that

Dyslexia is not linked to intelligence, and many of our world’s brightest minds, such as Whoopi Goldberg and Leonardo da Vinci, are dyslexic. Dyslexia is more common than one might assume. In 2017, Dyslexia International estimated that 5-10% of the global population, around 700 million people, are dyslexic.

Each person experiences dyslexia in different ways, with the Dyslexie website outlining 37 symptoms of dyslexia.

The font has included several design aspects that make it more legible. It has

they are committed to creating.

To Realize This Vision We Need To: * Learn to be uncomfortable * Recognize and acknowledge the diversity of experiences * Hear, not just listen, especially to girls and young women * Recognize power and privilege within our communities * Acknowledge and address the micro- aggressions and lateral violence in our communities * Have an open heart and open mind coming into circles of dialogue * Share counter-narratives (including stories of success and courage) * Reflect continuously on how practices and behaviours that enable gender- based violence can be done differently * Love and respect each other as individuals, and celebrate each other, our similarities and differences * Adopt a Sisters’ Keeper attitude where we look out for one another, and support

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each other to ensure that we grow as individuals 4

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Toolkits A Toolkit on Creative Approaches to Studying Change: Looking Back and Determining that Path Ahead Leann Brown, McGill University This toolkit, prepared by Emily Booker and Allison McCook, builds on the tools and approaches outlined in “Looking Back and Determining the Path Ahead,” drawing on the methods outlined in this evaluation framework and providing insight into real world application. It serves as an overview of methods that can be used to evaluate ‘what happened’ and the difference an arts-based, youthled and Indigenous focused project is making among its participants, assessing how it is functioning, how well it has met its original goal(s), as well as illuminating areas that can be improved on.

This resource offers a step-by-step guide to the implementation and use of each tool, when it is most useful, along with advantages and disadvantages. A key feature of the toolkit is the IN ACTION! examples which showcase different ways the methods of evaluation have successfully been employed, primarily drawing on Indigenous youth-led examples from Networks4Change.

Real-world applications of cellphilming, change, youth-led surveys, and more can be used to help researchers or communities determine which tools are best suited to their projects.

We acknowledge the work of Suzanne Methot, a Nehiyaw (Cree) writer, editor, educator, and community worker, for her extensive content review and advice. We are thankful to Gabrielle Giroux, proud Dene woman from Hatchet Lake First Nation and founder of Encore Graphics for her beautiful and thoughtful design work. The production of this toolkit draws on the work of so many colleagues attached in one way or another to the Participatory Cultures Lab (through work in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, and South Africa) and who have, over the last decade, been committed to the idea of collective learning, working on and adapting a variety of toolkits and guides in support of participatory and arts-based methodologies. To access the toolkit, visit: https://mcgill.ca/x/oPc

IN ACTION! Focus Group Discussions example in A Toolkit on Creative Approaches to Studying Change: Looking Back and Determining that Path Ahead 33

March Cellphones, Connections, & Community: A Toolkit for Community-led Organizations Darshan Daryanani, McGill University We are excited to launch the Cellphones, Connections and Community: Harnessing Technologies to Foster Community Communication and Connection toolkit, a collaboration between the Listening to One Another to Grow Strong (LTOA) program, the Institute for Human Development and Well-being (IHDW), and the Participatory Cultures Lab (PCL). The intention of the toolkit to promote wellbeing and connection in the communities around us.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with many organizations pivoting their service delivery strategies to online platforms such as Zoom, mobile technologies and digital platforms have dramatically increased in use as individuals and communities depend on their use to communicate, connect and receive services. Cellphones are everyday tools that are readily accessible and easily usable by a majority of people and used on a regular basis. With the development of smartphone technology, they have become a primary means through which people document life, share ideas, and store information.

They are also used to create content through photos and videos, as well as share content through social media applications. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, cellphones have allowed individuals and families to stay connected through text messaging and long-distance calling, all of which have been made easier through social media apps such as Facebook and Instagram.

Through the activities in this toolkit, we hope that meaningful and mindful

Briefing Paper Nesa Bandarchian & Sahar Fazeli

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engagement with friends and family online can compensate for diminished face-to-face interactions, due to busy schedules or current social distancing measures.

About the Toolkit Most of the activities in this toolkit are organized around the idea of “What can communities and families do with a cellphone?” While we recognize that access to technology itself may be a challenge and ‘not for everyone’, we are committed to the idea that even minimal access to technology can go a long way to help families feel less isolated. The activities in the toolkit are aimed at bringing people together to share their lived experiences and learn from each other. However, many of the activities can be also conducted independently, as a means for individuals to stay healthy, stimulated and active.

The toolkit is divided into sections based on activity themes, including and photovoice, movement-based activities like running, yoga and dance choreography, art-based activities such as collage making, creative writing and making musical playlist, food-based activities like hosting a virtual dinner party, a cooking show and creating a cookbook, literature-based activities like storytelling and story-boarding.

The activities are described in a stepby-step process, with tips and tricks, material lists, and prompts for guidance.

The toolkit also includes a section on utilizing online information storage, programs, and platforms, that will allow you to make the best use of your digital device.

Thank You! The joint teams began working together in May 2020 brought together a variety of perspectives and talents to brainstorm ideas on how to help community organizations mobilize online technologies to facilitate program activities in the time of COVID-19.

We would like to thank members of the LTOA team who organized and reviewed drafts of the document over the past few months: Leah Birch, Tristan Supino, and Michaela Field, and a group of summer interns and research assistants from the IHDW for their brainstorming and creativity in organizing this toolkit: Darshan Daryanani, Nesa Bandarchian Rashti, Sahar Fazeli, Joy Hannam, Colette Anton, Mary-Lynne Loftus, and Sonia Bucan. You can access the toolkit here: https://mcgill.ca/x/oPG

▶ Ethics of Participatory Visual Research to Address Gender-based Violence, ▶ Using Everyday Media Making Tools to Address Gender-based Violence, and ▶ Girl Groups to Address Sexual Violence.

Coming Soon Towards Developing an Indigenous Girl-led Framework on Well-being The Networks4Change’s main activities are wrapping up after almost seven years.

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What we have learned about the well-being of Indigenous girls and young women of Canada and South Africa through their engagement in arts-based methods?

and young women. The paper looks at how activism, resurgence, self-love and ‘paying

Treaty 6 Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia

July Gathering A July prairie sunrise was the most exquisite backdrop to walk into as the girls from YIWU unloaded supplies and gathered in front of the Worme family Tipi. It fascinated each of the girls to be in a new space, never mind together after many months of isolation and social distancing due to COVID-19.

Land, Ceremony, laughter!Wahkotawin, pimatsowin, nitewak!

We were greeted by Auntie Helen Semaganis-Worme, who had given us permission to be in this sacred special place, this tipi carries many stories, ancestors, and healing and had been within their family for generations.

Risen at Sundance’s and used with purpose now, Helen hung a shawl up in the tipi with love in her heart and had Gabby tie the tobacco bundles by her shawl, knowing that it would wrap the girls in love and comfort as we took time to check in after many months of being apart and invite Randy Morin and Lindsey Knight to give us teachings for the morning.

▶ Boundaries, prayer, time to reflect ▶ Sobriety, life partners, healing

journeys

▶ Raising children, taking our power

back, the power of choice

▶ Old ways, our ways, the future

The themes of the day were planned carefully and with input from the YIWU, as always, we started with smudge and a circle, with check-ins and snacks. The girls naturally know how things roll, everyone pitching in. Gabby has started preparing and leading our smudges as an oskaypos-iskewis, this is an important role in our group as it takes calmness, gentleness, and good thoughts to help transmit our prayers and intentions between us and Creator.

The next few hours were spent eating, laughing, and taking a dip in the pool.

Feeling refreshed we headed to the hotel to prepared for the next day, where we would invite the younger girls into our circle again for their second sessions with us. Curtis Vinish, another male role model in our community also came to hang out with us, share with us some of his experiences, and hang with us as we sewed, beaded, and prepped for Utopia 2.0.

It was nice just to be … be together … while we waited for Lindsey and Randy to arrive. What took place in the tipi was special, it was sacred, and it was just for us.

Chokecherry Studios was hot, hot, hot, but the girls powered through and delivered a beautiful day of auntying and creating.

These were some of the topics Lindsey and Randy spoke about and both were extremely humbled and honoured to be able to sit and speak with such amazing young women. The girls felt the same way:

Gabby and Jessica quickly organized their agenda for the day for the girls to see and everyone pitched in to set up the space. Kiyari McNab, another role model and exceptional young woman took photos throughout the day to capture our special moments together.

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Tanis Worme, an emerging visual artist, spent the day with us teaching us a new technique of linocut and silkscreen print making to speak back to colonial violence. This medium allowed the girls to speak directly without the convolutions of English. Tanis is Plains Cree and a member of the Poundmaker Cree Nation with roots to Mistawasis and Kawacatoose First Nations. The method of printmaking allowed the girls to send messages on paper, clothing, and banners. It is a thoughtful process that requires careful consideration of how the composition will be “read” or “perceived.” The girls’ work was astounding considering the over heated environment and it was their first attempt. They had the opportunity to etch an individual print, discover how to use the tools, and we are looking forward to creating more collaborative projects together.

As always, our time together goes hard and fast, and no one wants it to end. We created interactive journals for the girls to do their self-reflections and YIWU will support and reach out to their younger iskwewak to help them with their writing reflections and do check ins as we navigate, back to school, online learning, and continuing to survive and resist together during COVID-19 times.

Reflections: Ocean Sanderson, original member Hey Jen! I’m thankful and very honoured to do this. Girls group is always a great time, we laugh, we cry, we share, and we create long lasting memories. Our recent girls group session was so beautiful, I wish it could be like that all the time. All of us and our lovely guests hanging out together and sharing our stories in a tipi on the land, smelling the fresh air and sage, and eating. It’s the best, like come on, nothing gets better than that. A big thank you to Helen who let us use her space to reconnect. That was very kind of her and her family.

That session was very much needed, especially hearing Randy and Lindsey’s stories, they were very powerful. I’m glad they shared a part of them with us. It was a teachable moment for all of us and I learned a lot; they inspire me very much to keep going everyday and work hard, they also made me believe I can and will accomplish lots. I love 8

how girls group reminds me all the time on how far I’ve come and how far I still have to go to get to where I want to be! Everyone in girls group and who we meet along the way is definitely a confidence booster.

Reflections: Cindy Moccasin, original member It was very nice to finally get together with the girls after not being able to for so long, being together gives me a sense of wholeness and I love being able to create new memories. I really enjoy working with the younger girls and being able to set an example for them. They remind me of myself and the other girls when we first started, and I hope one day they can gain the same friendship and sisterhood with each other that us older girls have.

We spent a day with the younger girls working, laughing, and eating in the studio together. We started with smudge and introducing ourselves, then we shared a little bit about who we are. We created our self love wall with the girls and shared what self love means to each other. We then learned how to do print making and how to carve using the different pencils, for most of us it was our first time, so we took a while but everyone created their own unique designs. Once we were finished, we created our own posters

and added them altogether onto one poster, some of us even added them onto our clothing. Giving plays a big part in our indigenous cultures so we also had little gifts to give our girls, so they know and feel that they’re respected and supported.

Closing We then finished off the day with a sharing circle about how our day went and something we learned.

Moving Forward YIWU is currently working on a collaborative journal piece for a Special Issue of Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (IGSA@ ND) which two of the girls are coauthoring, alongside Guest Editor, Catherine Vanner. Also, we celebrated another publication this past November titled, “Red Ribbon Skirts and Cultural Resurgence” Kimihko sîmpân iskwêwisâkaya êkwa sihcikêwin waniskâpicikêwin in Girlhood Studies (2019, Volume 12, Issue 3). We hope you take the time to continue to listen, read, learn, disrupt, and resist.

Hiy hiy! Ekoshii! Until next time!

Peace out from T6/THM!

Interview About the Cellphilm Festival th

International

The Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia and Cellphilms— From Student to Teacher Colette Anton | McGill University Gabby has been working with cellphilms for years, notably earning second place in th

with others in participatory visual Saskatchewan, and has already been an active member of the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) for three years, working enthusiastically to uphold the group’s mission of “representing the stories and visions for a world where women and girls can be liberated in organization, she’s played two distinct roles: that of a motivated student and an I was lucky enough to speak with Gabby about her work with YIWU, cellphilming, focus of the YIWU through the years has

“

We hold workshops for ourselves, workshops for younger girls (called Utopia 2.0), create artwork including cellphilms, and do public speaking.

In the group, everyone shows up and has fun.

are really great. For someone like me who can get easily distracted, I found “ Cellphilms that presentations can become boring, but videos help me focus. They’re a great way to get the message out; they usually make people pay more attention. They’re easy to make, short, and very effective.

Gabby shared how eager she was to incorporate more cellphilm workshops within the definitely want to introduce making cellphilms to the younger girls because that’s how “ We old we were when we started making them … I know a lot of the girls would like it. In the

first workshop, we made TikToks with them and they all knew right away how to use the technology. I know if [the cellphilms] had an important message, they would like it even more.

have been … some challenges. We usually meet once a month in person, but “ There because of COVID, we couldn’t meet for a few months. We can’t have any workshops on reservations or for other younger girls.

Nevertheless, Gabby noted how the organization has stayed resilient in these unprecedented times, and adapted their work to continue providing support for young we were able to meet in groups of less than thirty, so in the past week we had “ Recently, one day where we hung out with the older girls, went to a tipi, smudged, and talked. Then, we had a workshop with the younger girls and held it at an arts space where we could be [safely] scattered. Lots changed when COVID-19 started. It was hard because [the group] also enjoyed hanging out together; it took a toll on us.

Gabby noted how essential the group has been in deepening her understanding of social issues, as well as in empowering her to use tools like cellphilms to educate

With things beginning to approach some semblance of normalcy, Gabby has been able

first made cellphilms about gender“ We based violence. I didn’t know what it

plans … are to keep mentoring the young girls, travel more, and expand the group. I “ My really enjoy being a part of [the YIWU] because I made a lot of new friends—they’re my

was before…more people need to know about it. Young children especially are a good audience—there is lots of genderbased violence in schools.

sisters and my family. The group brought awareness to a lot I didn’t know about. I’ve very happy to be a part of it.

website

Intern Profile: Colette Anton

Intern Profile: Joy Hannam

Colette is the lead intern for the PCL’s International Cellphilm

She is at her fourth year at McGill completing a Bachelor of Arts in International

entering her fourth year at McGill

Growing up with a creative background, she picked up many passions in art,

and minoring in Political Science

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Rankin Inlet On April 21st 2020, as the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic was creeping north to Nunavut, the girls from Rankin Inlet’s GET ART group (Girls Expressing Themselves through Art) shared a beautiful PSA to keep their community safe.

Nunavut officially declared a state of emergency on March 18th and the GET ART girls each created informative and encouraging posters from their homes during this period of confinement.

The group leader, Jennica Alhda Barcial, shared a collage of photographs of the girls with their posters on social media, reminding the community of what is important during these challenging times “Rankin! Let’s keep Nunavummiut safe by staying home, washing our hands often and spending time with our families. Thank you!”

The community responded with appreciation and the post garnered many positive remarks and notes of thanks. Nunavut has had no confirmed cases of Covid-19 throughout the pandemic, through community conscious and unifying efforts like that of the girls, Rankin Inlet is safe from the virus. The girls will continue their work to achieve the same kind of safety and security within other aspects of their community life.

Eskasoni Linda Liebenberg

Gwe’ everyone!

And happy summer/winter greetings wherever you may find yourself. While the past few months have been limiting because of COVID, and disappointing because our wonderful trip to South Africa has been cancelled or postponed, we have been able to use our summer wisely, to focus on our memorial garden for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

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We have made amazing headway on this project! As soon as the lockdown restrictions began to loosen, we got going on the garden. We began in midJune by laying out the design on the land and building the smudge bowl and seven concrete rocks. We subsequently painted the rocks to represent each of the seven sacred teachings.

The weekend was amazing. It was our first try at the rocks and they turned out beautifully as did the smudge bowl for our memorial at the centre of the labyrinth. And, when we marked out the four quadrants of the medicine wheel beds, our original plan matched up perfectly with the four directions … as if the garden was simply meant to be.

We also spent a lot of time with the earth moving contractor, Darrel, from D.J. Denny Trucking here in Eskasoni.

He was extremely generous with his time, offering lots of advice on the plan and how to implement it. That following Monday, Darrel and his crew began work on the earth moving; they did an amazing job and certainly helped move things along much faster than if we had done that work by hand! Once they were done, we were able to get the plants in and build the labyrinth.

Shaw bricks in Sydney, NS, generously donated everything that we needed for that part of the project. In addition to plants that we bought, and those that were generously donated by various communities, we have also moved plants from the old crisis centre healing garden to our memorial garden. It’s wonderful to give these plants a new home where they will continue to be

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appreciated. In many ways its also a continuation of one of our initial research projects, Spaces & Places.

The resilience mural we painted reflecting the finding from that project, created a backdrop to the previous healing garden. By moving plants from the old garden to this new one, it seems in some ways, we are still connected to that original project.

Possibly the best part of working on the garden so far though, has been the guidance provided by our Elder Clark Paul in planting sweet grass in the garden. In the day we spent together, he taught us how to transplant the grass according to our traditional teachings, and what this sacred medicine means to us as Mi’kmaw. It was a very special day! Now that the garden and labyrinth are in, we are going to be working on the space for ceremony next, installing the sweat lodge, tee-pee, and sacred fire pit. In addition to that we still have many other smaller tasks to take care of around the garden, but we will let you know more about this later in the year!

In the interim, if you want to watch our garden grow, visit our website: changethesilence.org/ watch-our-garden-grow/

Eskasoni Linda Liebenberg

Gwe’!

The past year has seen us celebrate our achievements to date, with a celebration evening in November 2019, at the ACCESS Open Minds-Eskasoni Youth building. We invited many locals and provincial service providers, and were thrilled to see so many people there, including Claudia Mitchell and Ann Smith. We were very grateful that Clark Paul and Lottie Johnson, elders who have travelled on this journey with us, were able to attend provide a smudge at the opening of the evening and close the event with a prayer. The evening gave many of us a chance to talk about the work we have done in the past 4 years, what we have found through the research and how we have shared these findings with our community and beyond. The evening gave us the chance especially to celebrate our colouring in book! It was wonderful to be able to comment on the success of the book (which is now being used by service providers across three Atlantic provinces) and share it with even more service providers (for example the Nova Scotia RCMP’s human trafficking coordinator, David Lane). We ended the evening with a feast. While people mixed and mingled, we encouraged them to look at displays of our work, including panels from the 2018 Circles Within Circles event. We also asked people to provide feedback on the colouring in book and ideas for a memorial garden we are planning.

So, this year we will be building a memorial garden for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls from Eskasoni. We have already had several planning meetings and will be sharing our ideas with families themselves at the end of February.

Many ideas for the garden are taken from our previous research findings.

We are hoping to include a little something from each of the sites. We have asked that each of the Canadian sites provide us with seeds of Indigenous plants from their communities that we can grow in our own garden. If you didn’t get a chance to share them with Jenny at the More Than Words dialogue event, we would

still be thrilled to receive seeds or any other artifacts you would like for us to include. We are also hoping that we can find a creative way of including something from the South African sites. If anyone has any ideas, please let us know? Maybe at the Imbizo Intergenerational! in Durban, South Africa later this year!

Tree used in the Youth Centre where participants gave their input on the garden planning at the Celebration evening 5

Rankin Inlet Jennica Alhda Barcial This year the participants of the Girls Expressing Themselves through ART program are working on a cellphilm that showcases the different types of bullying that occur in different generations. The girls specifically chose a topic they felt exists in all ages and an issue that needs to be explored and talked about further.

Eleven participants aged 8-14 have been collaboratively acting, directing and editing the cellphilm. Discussions around bullying and ways to stop bullying were explored. The participants suggested that the most effective ways to combat bullying are to tell an adult and attend a “caring group” where the bullies and victims could be advised by Elders who speak about Inuit values and history that touches upon about the importance of friendship and community.

Previous participants in the “Girls Talk Back: A Media Workshop about us by us,” that was held last summer, were given roles as mentors to the younger and newer participants of the group.

One of the primary goals for this workshop is to strengthen and support the older participant’s ability to lead and teach the younger girls through the various arts-based activities.

Treaty 6 Young Indigenous Girls’ Utopia

Taanishii kiya wow!

Greetings from the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) in Treaty 6, Homeland of the Metis.

Things have been busy as usual and the Fall and Winter months have brought us many lessons, hardships, but most of all unity and love. With many of our planning and sewing sessions taking place in Jenn’s kitchen, these kitchen conversations are where we gather our ideas and our voices to impact the 6

Above: Girls creating ulu-shaped collages with Inuit pictures

Below: Girls tattooing each other with historical Inuit patterns

Each session of the workshop is based on relevant themes such as: “Marks of belonging” and “Ulus: The women’s knife” The participants have the opportunity to learn about: ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶ ▶

Inuit tools Inuit tattooing Throat singing Listening to Elder’s stories, and Creating jewellery that reflect Inuit designs all taught and presented by role-models in the community.

next generation of matriarchs and girls leading girls! For Indigenous peoples, the kitchen table is where many acts of resistance have been planned, red rose tea’s have been steaped, and sewing and beadwork projects completed. In its essence, this has become a methodology and practice which created a safe space for learning and sharing for Utopia.

YIWU has kicked off our More Than Words Project and we have recruited a new group of young Indigenous girls to begin their inquiry and exploration of gender-based violence and how it impacts our lives and the lives of our families. We welcomed 6 iskwêsis to our circle and we are excited to begin our journey of auntieship and supporting

a new generation of iskwêsis from our community to learn strategies and find their voices to speak back and resist the violence that continues to attempt to oppress us as Indigenous girls!

In September 2019, we did a workshop with teachers in training at the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program Anti-Racism Conference reaching over 50 teachers in-training, sharing our poetry and book, which we are finding many educators using to teach about violence in their classrooms, whether it be the K-12 system or in post-secondary institutions.

The girls are overwhelmed with humility and pride that their book continues to reach so many classrooms.

More Than Words Mentorship Workshop Opening Circle, Smudging with Elder Cecile Smith

The Stories of Love and Kinship: Photo and Poetry Exhibit.

Photo credit: Jenn

On October 4, 2019, Saskatoon held its annual Sisters in Spirit Vigil in remembrance of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people who have been murdered, gone missing or had their cases left cold in what is being called a Canadian genocide. This vigil is one of many that took place all over Canada that same day. It was held at the Saskatoon Indian and Métis Friendship Centre. It began with a prayer and was followed by a walk that saw attendees, led by four singers and drummers, taking to the streets of downtown Saskatoon.

People of all ages were in attendance, some bearing banners and others holding signs dedicated to their relatives who were being commemorated.

After the walk, the solemn gathering allowed time for multiple families to tell their stories and remember their loved ones. Gabby and Jessica represented Utopia at the event, and we have had many requests to provide educational workshops with our community.

Jessica and Gabby representing Utopia at Sisters in Spirit Vigil in remembrance of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people who have been murdered, gone missing. Photo credit: The Sheaf, 2019

In February 2020, we were invited to perform our “Self-Love is Our Resistance” Poem at The Stories of Love and Kinship: Photo and Poetry Exhibit to raise funds as an act of solidarity for the children and women of Kanyaware, Uganda who do not have access to health care! The girls captivated the crowd with their stories of girls group and poetry and inspired the many dignitaries in the crowd including, Niko Trick from the United Nations, Dr. Louis Halfe, and Zoey Roy, spoken word artist and communitybased educator! In the spirit of love and kinship, the girls decided to donate half of their book sales back to the event.

This is what love and justice looks like!

As February has ended, we will be putting on our visiting scholars hats and heading to Treaty 13 Territory, Toronto, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. Invited by our favourite accomplice and ally, Sarah Flicker has organized a 4-day adventure, packed with learning, knowledge transmission, and a little bit of fun for a project titled, ‘A Youth-Led Approach to Indigenizing Curriculum at York University’. Kalan and Gabby will travel with the Utopia

team to participate and perform in the Eco-Arts and Media Festival and they will facilitate several workshops with various audiences at York to share their work and approach to Indigenizing research and challenging genderbased and colonial violence. Woah!

What a blessed life we lead!

With all these positive experiences the girls and their families continue to be proud of each other and having the courage to lead in our community.

Utopia continues to make waves and inspire both young and old in Treaty 6/ Homeland of the Metis! We love you all!

Till next time! Ekoshii!

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Treaty 6 Young Indigenous Girls’ Utopia

Update from Jen, Kari, & Sarah Tansi/Taanishii from Treaty 6, Traditional Homeland of the Metis.

The spring and summer months have brought many lessons and memories for The Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia and we are thankful to Creator and our kin for the love and resilience we continue to exuberate.

The highlight of our work together during these seasons has brought us to a point where our young women were able to share their learnings and stories with our community. With great nervousness and excitement YIWU launched the first edition of our very own book, inspired by our sisters in South Africa, we spent much of the winter and early snowmelt, writing, peer editing, and working with the fabulous Indigenous Graphic Designer Gabrielle Giroux and Encore Graphics.

Within this time together our girls journeyed through the discipline and dedication it takes to self-publish and launch what Utopia has meant to us, not just as girls but as a collective of resisters, matriarchs, and survivors.

Our book is an exciting collection of poetry, prose and photography that documents our journey and celebrates the girl’s resistance to colonial and gender-based violence. It stresses that self-love and pride are the first steps in creating a safer world for Indigenous girls. The compilation also includes love letters from project facilitators and prominent local Indigenous feminist artists, activists and community leaders.

Mentors and friends. Sarah and Claudia joined us to celebrate this amazing accomplishment and we were pleased to show them how we do things in T6/ TMT. At the tender age of 13 and 14, our 7 brave, courageous and kind young women each read a piece of their work which brought, laughter, tears, and pride to a packed house of over 100 people. Words cannot describe the power and magnitude that filled Paved Arts that night. These young women organized a night to remember with a yummy spread of appetizers, the smell of cedar and sage lingering in the air, the powerful lyrics of For Women by Women Aunties, Eekowl and T-Rhyme, and a book cover cake made for these Queens. The girls rode home under the moonlight and were left feeling uplifted, empowered, and most importantly loved.

The 200 copies of YIWU sold out within a month! We couldn’t believe it and we spent this summer re-editing and will have our second edition available for the fall of 2019. The girls of Utopia’s stories are now in the hands of Kokums, Professors, educators, little sisters, and many proud family members. It is quite incredible what can happen when you give young iskwewak a pen and paper and the courage to speak their truth.

Through the evening of the book launch, we wanted to create a space where families could speak back to our

work and share their voices on how they felt about the evening and the girl’s involvement with Networks4Change and the impact Utopia has had on the girl’s lives. Kiyari McNab, an Indigenous filmmaker from our community, engaged in the process of ethical storytelling with our families and the girls infused with Indigenous research methodologies and fun. Kiyari has been producing a video that will capture the impact of YIWU and what it means to our community. Our video is set to launch again in Treaty 6 in late August.

We will gather families and friends together to screen this powerful piece of our voices in a visual storytelling project.

As we catch our breath, resist our oppressors and pick Saskatoon berries and medicines over these next weeks of the warm summer months, we are excited to continue the next wave of our work together and though we still face the hardships and challenges that everyday life may bring, we know we are never alone and have group of girls and a larger network of sisters worldwide, who stand beside us each day fighting the gendered and colonial violence we are left to resist, and we never forget that: We are strong, We are smart, We are girls.

With much love and respect!

Aho! Peace out from Treaty 6/TMT!

On April 28th, in a cozy dark room at Paved Arts Studio on 20th Street in Saskatoon, YIUW took pride in inviting their Kokums, Mooshums, Mothers, Fathers, Aunties, Brothers, Sisters,

Rankin Inlet Marnina Gonick

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In July, the Rankin Inlet group ran a week-long media workshop, “Girls Talk Back.” The workshop took place at the Rankin Inlet Spousal Abuse Counselling Program which is part of the Pulaarvik Kablu. There were approximately 10

participants. The week-long program consisted of two parts: 1. Making a short video entitled

Struggling for a Happy Life, and

2. Creating a Girlfesto

The video recounts the experience of a young couple living in Rankin Inlet who have a new born baby. It focuses on the consequences of drug addiction and physical abuse and how the couple navigate community support services, including a women’s shelter and addictions counselling. The girls collaboratively created the story, acted it out, provided narration, edited the video and did the camera work.

Time to Teach About GenderBased Violence in Canada Treaty 6 Student Workshop Catherine Vanner The Time to Teach research project uses qualitative and participatory visual methods to examine experiences teaching and learning about genderbased violence in Canadian secondary schools. It is led by Catherine Vanner, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at McGill University, with Claudia Mitchell’s supervision, and involves curriculum analysis, teacher interviews, and participatory workshops with students and teachers.

In June 2019, the first participatory student workshop was held in Treaty 6 Territory (Saskatoon) with organizing partners Jennifer Altenberg, Kari Wuttunee, and Dynelle Wolfe from Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia. The two-day workshop brought together 10 Indigenous girls ages 11-17, including girls who were experienced members of Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia, as well as some who were new to the group.

For the second activity the group created a girlfesto—drawing on the Girlfesto that was created as part of the Circles Within Circles event. While the Rankin Inlet girls, saw many similarities to the demands in the prior Girlfesto they also saw some differences. They created a Girlfesto that spoke to the life conditions of girls living in the far North.

It lists the need for adequate housing, safety, and freedom from bullying.

group discussions, the participants wrote letters to someone they knew who has experienced gender-based violence. Their messages were then transferred to a red broadcloth and signed with handprints, pictured below.

We then used a series of art-based activities to explore experiences learning about gender-based violence and solicit suggestions for how teachers could best address gender-based violence issues in school contexts.

Activities included letters to teachers, cellphilms, and ‘carousels’ where students responded to questions on large sheets of paper, rotating between papers to build on and respond to each others’ comments.

Key messages from the workshop participants are that girls continue to experience colonial and gender-based violence and discrimination in school,

and that few have learned about gender-based violence issues in the school context. Participants stated that if it had not been for Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia, they never would have learned about gender-based violence, and that they should be taught about it so they know how to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, which particularly targets Indigenous girls during their adolescence. They encourage teachers to teach about gender-based violence with support of Indigenous community leaders, while always providing students the choice to leave a lesson about genderbased violence, making sure they feel loved and supported, and creating an opportunity for students to do something about it, such as helping to spread knowledge and awareness within their communities.

A Time to Teach art piece. With workshop participants’ handprints and messages to survivors of gender-based violence.

The workshop emphasized the importance of traditional Indigenous knowledge and self-love and worked with the girls to understand what colonial and gender-based violence is and invite their views on how it should be addressed by teachers in school. The workshop opened with the blessing of Elder Marjorie Beaucage, followed by an introduction on gender, healthy relationships, colonial violence, and gender-based violence led by community leaders Leigh Thomas and Breanna Doucette-Garr. Following these 7

Members of the Canadian-based team working across sites in BC, Saskatoon, Eskasoni and Rankin Inlet participated in a two day planning meeting at McGill, December 10-11.

A key feature of this two day planning meeting was to consider the shared principles in our participatory work with Indigenous youth which account for the successes of these initiatives. These 10 shared principles are summarized in the accompanying figure:

As a team we also recognized that the obvious next step in this work is one that places greater emphasis on ‘growing our own’. The emphasis here is one of building mentorship, leadership and facilitation skills of young people to take participatory arts-based work further by involving work with younger participants in the community and even by ‘rolling out’ these approaches to other community members).

A growing body of research evidence demonstrates that mentoring has significant positive and beneficial social, academic, and community outcomes for Indigenous young people. Good

mentoring can act as a protective factor that increases the likelihood of success for young people, while providing them with a person or people in whom they can place their trust and from whom they can learn.

Research from Canada, Australia and New Zealand illustrates the ways in which mentoring aligns exceptionally well with Indigenous ways of teaching and learning, and its cultural relevance has been demonstrated repeatedly.

Indigenous mentoring, in particular, emphasizes: ▶ Spirituality ▶ Tradition, ▶ Social and environmental factors, ▶ Integrates

cultural connections that fortify identity and cultural pride.

Indigenous mentoring differs from typical Eurocentric models in that it recognizes that all people can be teachers and learners, and that teachers are not just those people who have official accreditation to do so. Indigenous models tend to be activity-based and to value different ways of knowing. Indigenous youth leadership may also be more relational and privilege qualities such as being trustworthy, humble and healthy.

Treaty 6 Jennifer Altenberg Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) has been keeping things LIT up in Treaty 6/Traditional Homeland of The Metis. We are currently amping up for our Book Launch on April 27th, 2019 and will be launching our first ever publication showcasing each of our 7 amazing girls narratives around cultural resurgence, empowerment,

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mentorship, their own stories as survivors of gender-based violence.

This will be a special evening that will be spent with the families of each of the girls and those from our community who have contributed to the teachings of our group over the past three years.

It will be the very first time that we will be able to share the many different pieces we have produced as a group with the community of Saskatoon.

Although our prairie winter was tahkayow, the cold didn’t keep our girls from wanting to spend as much

time together as possible. We had 5 or more weekend workshops over the Fall and Winter months, mostly to prepare for our trip to Victoria, British Columbia to attend the Sisters Rising Intergenerational Forum to Honour Indigenous Knowledges of Gender Wellbeing and the International Girl Studies Association Conference in South Bend, Indiana. This was a unique opportunity for Kari and I to watch some of the transformative work begin as we watched our girls turn from participants to mentors and leaders themselves.

Two highlights of our work these past few months was: 1. our “Self-Love is Our Resistance

Poem” that we created for the Sisters Rising Conference, written and performed in a team slam poetry style by Jessica McNab, Cindy Moccasin, Kalan Cree Kalan McKay, and Gabby Daniels, and 2. the

amazing graphic design workshops lead by Gabrielle Giroux a 19 year Indigenous women from the Prince Albert area who has been working with the girls to create their book.

Gabrielle has helped to bring the ideas and contributions of the girls journaling over the past three years to life through her amazing graphics design skills and collaboration with contributors of the book.

Each opportunity that we are given to come together, whether it is to learn a new skill, peer-edit each other’s writing, or present on a panel at an International

Conference, each one of the girls from YIWU continues to grow, learn, and embrace this exciting journey that we are on together.

Cindy Moccasin one of our YIWU presenters wrote a reflection on our recent trip to South Bend, Indiana: “I never thought our group would go and do presentations at international conferences with girls from all over the world. I am very grateful for this new experience and I also never thought I would leave the country especially without my Mom at 15.

When preparing I didn’t know what to expect at this conference and I am glad we chose to present at it because the feedback was very positive and made me personally feel good about it afterwards.

We met some great people from Pokagon Band who were super kind and even invited us to hang out and visit their community after the conference. They showed us around and gave us a little knowledge about the Reservations in America and even opened up a little about their life experiences and what they go through. Being able to meet people

especially our age who have been through similar things/situations as us girls in the group means so much and inspires me to want to do more. I can’t wait for our next presentation.”

Jessica McNab also reflected: “Getting everything for this trip was a hassle and in some parts very frustrating for me and my family. When we got to Indiana it was very surreal to me, I never imagined myself in the States presenting at a women’s conference. Being there made me think a lot about how far our girls group has come. It made me think back to our first session and how nervous we were to be there, how we were strangers to each other. Now we’re super close and we treat each other like family.

The part I liked the most about our trip was going to Pokagon with Jasmine and Glenn (the youth we presented to) I loved it there, I loved the scenery while driving back. What I’ll always remember, is when we were in the van driving back into south bend, I looked back at the window and there were trees and through those trees was the sun set, it was beautiful, the sky was pink and purple with clouds surrounding the sun. It was amazing.”

Treaty 6 South Bend selfie (see page 3 to see more from this trip) 15

Jessica continued: “Presenting to all the women was scary but such an amazing experience that I can now talk about to my friends and family. I felt proud of myself for standing up there and trying to talk, being someone with bad anxiety. I was proud of Jen and Kari, I was proud of my group and even more proud to be a part of this

amazing experience. I can’t wait for the future and what it has in store for us.”

With our book launch just around the corner, it is in a good way that we will attend a full moon ceremony together on March 21st with our families at Marjorie’s place in Duck Lake and begin to create our new ribbon skirts

for our book launch. We hold space with each of you as we continue to do this work, it is not easy, our tears may still fall, but we continue to grow, continue to rise, and continue to fight the injustices Indigenous girls have to face every day!

See CBC Saskatoon’s article on Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia: https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5047057

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Treaty Six out!

International Girls Studies Association Conference

Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia Energizes the 2019 IGSA Conference South Bend, Indiana | February 28-March 2, 2019

Circles Within Circles

Speaking Back: YouthLed Perspectives on Combatting Sexual Violence

Young Indigenous

Women’s

Utopia

Cindy Moccasin (L) and Jessica McNab (R) with the Girlfesto Art Exhibition at the IGSA

(L to R): Kari-Dawn Wuttunee, Jessica McNab, Cindy Moccasin, Jennifer Altenberg and Lennie Rose presenting their cellphilm

Networks for Change and Well-being

Calls to Action 1.

2.

3