By Vanessa Brown
My beat members and I have noticed that, more than anything, most of our stories have the importance of communication in common. And last Saturday was no exception. The Empowering African Immigrant Women to Become Leaders in Raising Sexually Healthy Children workshop was open and honest dialogue in action.
It wasn't the first time the program's been offered. Last year, Toronto Public Health facilitated a similar education series. However, the co-ordinator's noticed that it was being taught from the top-down. The curriculum didn't leave enough room for participants to voice their own opinions on sexual-health information. So it didn't take.
This time around, Toronto Public Health teamed up with Africans in Partnership Against AIDS (APPA), which provided a social worker to help with the workshops. Even better, the social worker knew the participants personally.
I walked into the narrow basement of APPA last Saturday and was immediately overtaken with the warm voices of nine recent immigrants to Canada. They spoke primarily in French. Thinking the language barrier might hinder my ability to get the story, and get it right, I sat down with caution.
It didn't take long for the women to warm to the idea of talking about sex and sexuality. In individual interviews earlier this week, I learned that these women were raised to keep their sexuality hidden. One emigrated from Ivory Coast, another from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and they both stressed how taboo a subject sexuality is in Africa. It finally dawned on me: these women want to talk about sex and sexuality! They want their children and future grandchildren to be able to understand their own sexuality, and feel secure to come to them with questions. They hope that by learning about the dangers of sexually transmitted infections, their children will know how to protect themselves and their partners. Through it all, the women begin to understand what sexuality means to them. And that is truly empowering.
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