The 411 Initiative For Change aims to bring info about AIDS, racism to school kids
Toronto Sun
ETERNIA - It's Called Life
Reported by: ERROL NAZARETH
A recent event in the city -- The 411 Initiative For Change -- got me thinking about some of the faux "female empowerment" messages foisted upon young women by some female hip-hop and R&B stars.
I'm referring specifically to the contentious belief held by performers such as Lil' Kim that using sex, or your body, makes a woman powerful.
The 411 rejects such nonsense.
For 10 years, the national youth-led, non-profit organization has been utilizing arts and culture to get young people thinking about issues such as AIDS and racism. And Tamara Dawit, the group's executive director, says it makes sure to include female artists in its programming.
Eschewing fancy ads and public-service announcements, The 411 takes its message to high schools across the country and keeps things hip and interesting by using video, theatre, performances and encouraging audience participation.
Its latest campaign, Girls Rights Are Human Rights Too, which wrapped up last Friday at Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School in Scarborough, was in the format of a mock live-to-air TV talk show. It addressed heavy issues such as gender equality, violence against women and child labour.
Participants included local rappers Eternia, Masia One and singer George Nozuka.
By all accounts, the consciousness-raising travelling show struck a chord with many of the youngsters who witnessed it.
"We visited an elementary school in Malvern, where the Grade 5 and 6 students were almost 99% first- or second-generation immigrants, mostly from South Asia," Dawit says. "These were students from some of the countries where issues like early marriage and infanticide are affecting girls.
"I knew the show had made an impact when students were able to repeat facts and information they had learned at the end of the show," she says. "Afterward, a teacher pointed out that the students had never sat and watched a presentation for that long and stayed focused."
Eternia, who took part in the organization's What's The 411 HIV/AIDS campaign earlier this year, sums up her participation this way: "It's really the most rewarding and personally fulfilling work that I've done."
As someone who has spoken at schools and has been met with indifference, I was curious how Eternia and the crew on this campaign were received.
"The level of engagement and interest was mindblowing," she says. "And that's probably due to the fact that The 411 is a youth-led movement. The kids got involved from the beginning of the presentation and stuck around and asked questions well after it ended."
Eternia says that she was unaware of some of the frightening statistics that were shared with the audiences such as "two million girls are killed every year before or after being born simply for being born a girl.
"But, I knew that one in three women experience abuse in their lifetime," she adds. "My mom was one of those women."
Listening to Eternia, I get the sense that the show moved everyone who participated. Nozuka says he was hit hard emotionally during a visit to Haiti last year that was sponsored by Plan Canada.
"My cause right now is to raise awareness of child slavery in Haiti," he says on 411's website. "There are right now 170,000 child slaves in Haiti. It's a problem that is socially acceptable in Haiti and one that we can change little by little as long as we talk about it."
In an interview, Nozuka says his first stop in Haiti "was an orphanage with children who are either affected by or living with HIV/AIDS. They reminded me of angels on earth ... they were so compassionate. I was overwhelmed by how affectionate and sincere they were."
It's fair to say that as an entertainer, Eternia's 'cause' has always been to confront issues affecting young women.
"Specifically," she writes on The 411's site, "sexual assault on young girls, teenage girls. I went through it. It could have been a lot worse, but sometimes I feel like I should be talking about it in schools.
"I've had a gun pointed at me, forced to do s---. It's real. I want girls to know that other girls went through it. I want girls to know it's okay to talk about it.
"I want girls to never, ever feel ashamed."
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