Voice, Body, Power: Gender-based violence and spoken word poetry

Description

Following the Just Youth World Poetry Slam events in 2021, the organisers were compelled to respond to the issues and the topics that raised by the young slam poets:

Young people from all over the world signed up to our slams and raised their voices about issues from climate change, to the housing crisis, to corporate greed. One emerging theme however stood out: Gender based violence. Young people from all continents shared impassioned, insightful poems that rose like a collective call. We were struck by this emergence – this unexpected, unplanned confluence of thoughts, desires and demands about GBV. We weren’t sure what to do with this, but knew these poems spoke to each other in a unique and valuable way.

We decided that if young people were raising the issue of GBV through poetry, that this might just be a language to reach other young people. So, we gathered four of the poems that had most impacted us and began speaking to the poets about a project. All of the poets were interested and excited about the idea of working together to make something that would have a wider impact. We began working on this manual to do just that.

Voice, Body, Power: Gender-based violence and spoken word poetry is a youth work-friendly manual that is broken up into four sections. Each section is based around one poem about Gender-based violence and includes the following:

• A video of the Spoken word poem
• An interview with the poet
• Opening discussion ideas
• An activity to deepen the conversation.

Each section could take the form of a workshop with young people to be done in four consecutive weeks, or the sessions could be spread out further. It is important to establish respect and openness in the workshops before exploring these difficult and personal topics.

This resource includes:

• 14 activities designed in engaging and age-appropriate approaches with mixed-media materials
• Samples from Instagram posts, news headlines and social media for
• Trauma-informed approaches to exploring and understanding gender based violence (GBV)
• Inclusion of poetry from around the world to explore gender roles in Western society and from across the world such as Ireland, India, the UK and Nigeria.