Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

Spoken word poetry is becoming increasingly popular in allowing young people to express the challenges they face. The latest initiative in T&T is the international pilot program of Girl Be Heard (GBH), a women-led empowerment program which uses socially conscious theatre-making to develop, amplify and celebrate the voices of young women.

Director of Global Partnerships, Abigail Ramsay, said GBH will be acting as mentors to local NGO 2 Cents Movement (2CM) as they implement the program at Bishop’s Centenary College in Port of Spain. “We’re bringing best practices from working with GBH here in New York and letting them add their genius to it. We chose T&T for the international pilot program because many of our girls or their parents are from the Caribbean and also because of the warm reception we received when we came to T&T for the first time in March 2016.” The program, which runs from January to June 2016, sees the girls writing shows based on their experiences, which will be put on in March and June. It involves workshops where the Teaching Artist interacts with the girls using a girl empowerment curriculum. Ramsey said “the program is a listening model where the teachers get the content from the girls to build the lesson plans.”
Co-founder and Executive Director Jessica Greer Morris said the program has received the same reaction in the seven or eight countries it’s performed in. “We talk about bullying, body image, gender-based violence, domestic violence, incest, anything affecting a girl, and then so many girls come up to us and say, me too, I’m being bullied, I hate my body, I’m LGBTQ and I’m ashamed, I’ve been a victim of incest, and it’s the same thing everywhere. So we use the healing power of art and come up with ways to recover from trauma. First you have to have awareness, then acceptance and then you can have action.” Morris said GBH had learned it was important to take into account the trauma the girls would have suffered and how this affected them.
The first run of the program is being funded by the US Embassy, although additional funding is being sought for other schools. Public Affairs Officer Stephen Weeks said when the group came to T&T, they received an overwhelmingly positive response. “Empowering girls and fighting gender-based violence is a big priority for us at the Embassy. We hope that by bringing people together who have experienced some of the same things, they can help each other to heal and to address the issue from a cultural or even policy perspective. A lot of the girls, particularly in Bishops Centenary College, their eyes were opened. I think a lot of girls didn’t realize you could talk openly and creatively about these issues and were very inspired by it.”

Weeks said the Embassy was approached to bring GBH to T&T by activist Nicole Chin-Joseph of Ms. Brafit. Chin-Joseph said she first saw GBH in New York and immediately knew she had to get the group to come to Trinidad. “I was at a conference focusing on women’s rights and human rights issues. When I saw GBH perform, it struck me immediately that this could be something that we would benefit from as a nation and I said to them I am bringing you to Trinidad. I knew GBH wanted to go global, and said why not here?”

Weeks said GBH found a natural partner in 2CM, and he admired the way they had taken the opportunity to expand the Spoken Word space in T&T.

Managing Director of 2CM, Jean-Claude Cournand, said there were three main benefits to working with GBH. The first is that T&T is receiving a fully developed curriculum from GBH which had already been tested, at no cost to the country, while the program has also created jobs. Secondly, 2CM can use the curriculum to develop other programs for use with young men and for other issues. Thirdly, partnering with GBH also allows 2CM to expand their platform for outreach, as most of their members are male.
Thespian and teacher Penelope Spencer has been hired as the Teaching Artist, while Deneka Thomas from 2CM is the Assistant Teaching Artist. Following auditions, 15 girls have been chosen to be a part of the program. Thomas said the program gives the girls the opportunity to address issues affecting them and other girls through theatre, writing and performance. “These girls have things to say and not enough avenues to speak out. Many come from troubled homes, have seen terrible things, have been broken or are simply not courageous enough to address things they care about. This program helps them learn how to advocate for world issues artistically.” She said society needs programs like this, as “girls need empowerment, to feel wanted and cared for, to realize their full potential and excel beyond their circumstance or predisposition.”
Spencer said she was humbled by the talent shown during the auditions. “I had it in the back of my mind that these girls wouldn’t be well educated, because you get this picture that no-one wants to pass SEA for schools like Bishop’s Centenary. But the girls are so talented and they’re just wanting to be seen and heard. Right now they think they’re limited and nobody wants them because of the school they’re going to or nobody hears them. Some of these girls are very trauma-filled, some are cutting, there are girls there whose father killed their mother, girls with no parents, a parent has AIDS, they’re very at-risk girls, so I see why SEA would be a challenge to some of them because they’re going through things that I don’t know how adults could cope, much less children.”
Spencer said she is looking forward to the opportunity to help shape the girls’ talent and their lives. “This program will give them a space that they can be themselves without judgment. When I was younger, I was told to shut up for a long time so we want them to know they have a voice. It’s about teaching them to be leaders, to be able to think critically and make the right decisions and choices for them. If this program continues happening over the next 20 years all over T&T, we could have a whole bunch of women who are strong, who understand their power and know that they have value. That’s the kind of woman I want to pave the way for. That’s where I want to go.”