Miriam:

So what do you think would have to change about the workshops that you have coming up, to make there be a little bit more allowance, let’s say for student motivations? Or for student participation?

Jocelyn:

Well, first of all time, more time, but given that that is limited, I think it’s really important who’s doing the facilitating to and that they have a really solid understanding of what the project is about, and that’s something where I come in to play more, so next year, I want to spend more time with the people who are facilitating the workshops, and saying like, “Okay, this is what we would like to see. We would like this to be really led by the youth in what they want to do because this is their project. How can we give them the tools to do that?”

Which is generally what we’re try and do at Head & Hands, whatever it is we’re talking about. So when we go into classrooms and we do a workshop on sex ed, we’re giving them the tools, like the educational tools, the knowledge to be safe, or to be safer should they choose, or to make informed decisions, so decisions that are on their own, and there are always consequences, and they’ll be responsible for whatever they are whether they are positive or negative what have you, but if we can get them good information then they can make informed decisions, and the same, I think, goes for the media-training too, so how can we give them just the hard skills to shoot this video, and do what they want to do, and see what they want to see in it.

So if it’s some kind of a goofy story, then that’s cool if that’s what they want to make, and that’s what they get at the end of it. If they want to make something that’s a bit glossy or say something that they could use as an educational tool in a classroom, then they can do that also, but always it being their choice of what they want to do and how they want to use it, and hopefully, using some kind of consensus-based decision making process amongst the group to come up with their end goal.