In the last month I have taken a leave of absence from TRIP! to Coordinate the Queen West Harm Reduction Program at Central Toronto Community Health Centre. I am hoping to bring the same innovation to our broader harm reduction services, including better kits, as well as finding better ways to get the word out about our harm reduction services to our target populations.  Every day I learn something new, from how to say crack and heroin in Chinese, to how to pack a pipe!  I am finding ways to integrate my media and research skills into the job already, and we are already looking to experiment with collecting data on mobile phones. We are currently piloting a new software called NEO to log our needle exchange statistics for OCHART. Before NEO we logged everything on paper, so we are saving ourselves hours of work already! The outreach workers still use paper stats, so I’m hoping that if we introduce mobile phones we may be able to save them some time too. Being in this new role is a great challenge, but already I miss working directly with youth!  Still keeping my eyes on the horizon for new opportunities for the future.

I feel like these next steps in my career will really shape the direction I decide to go in.  I’ve always been passionate about harm reduction, youth and new media, but the question is what is next?  How do I channel my passions in a direction that will put me where I want to be in the future?  Before working with TRIP! I always thought that in order to make change we had to rally on the outside to transform power.  Now I am all about working from the inside, and collaborating with agencies, governments and international bodies that have the power to make change.  In the future I would love to work for the World Health Organization or UNAIDS in actually shaping some of these polcies that effect service delivery.  I want to use my grassroots experience as fuel for transforming the system itself, advocating for young people who use drugs and their human right to health.

TakingITMobile is a community-based research study conducted in partnership with the social network TakingITGlobal that examines how youth leaders across the globe use mobile communications to create social change within their local communities and internationally. As an e-PAR study, youth participants were encouraged to take the reigns as researchers through the online TakingITMobile Working Group, which comprised of 39 youth representing 20 different countries. TakingITMobile participants (n = 565) paint a picture of the diversity of mobile youth activism around the world.

It was found that the majority of youth reported using their mobile phones to generate Citizen Media to share their message globally, mobilize protests, fundraise, educate their peers and spread solidarity. TakingITMobile participants were passionate about a number of global issues, including the Environment (39%), Human Rights (36%), Poverty (28%), Health (24%), Peace (23.8%), HIV/AIDS (22.4%) and Violence (11.6%). While the most common mobile feature was Voice Calls (75%), TakingITMobile participants used a variety of mobile phone features, including Text Messages (46%), Web Browsing (38%), Social Media (27%), News (26%) and Photography (22%).

It was also discovered that youth who own smart phones are more likely to use their phones for activism (81%) than youth who don’t (71%).  As well, females are much less likely (70%) to use their phones for activism than males. Youth ages 25-29 show higher levels of activism (84%) than youth in their teens (67%), early 20s (75%) and 30s (75%). GDP per capita was an influencing factor on both monthly costs, monthly average number of minutes used, number of SMS used and internet data used. Overall it was found that participants from countries with high GDP per capita received cheaper services, with the exception of very high income nations such as Canada and the United States. A number of barriers were identified for mobile youth activists, including cost of services (32%) cost of mobile phones (10%) as well as network coverage (9%) were the biggest barriers to accessing mobile phones.

If you are interested in further exploring how youth activists are using their mobile phones for social change you can download the full report here.  As a participatory action research study, TakingITMobile aims to disseminate the results back to the community in order to share best practices in mobile activism and inspire others to take action. In conjunction with TakingITGlobal, we are hoping to produce a Mobile Guide to Action that can serve as a compass for youth activists interested in using their mobile phone for social change.  For those looking to help in developing this resource the TakingITMobile Working Group is always open to new volunteers! As well, we are hoping to partner with influential blogs in order to spread the results far and wide.  If you are interested in blogging about the TakingITMobile results feel free to contact lisa [@] mobilerevolutions.org for more information.

It is finally the last day of school!  Our last few classes of community arts were incredibly powerful and I feel so blessed to connect with such an extraordinary group. I started the Community Arts Practice Certificate in 2005 when I was attending York University as a visiting student.  I had never gone to traditional university before, as I was an Independent Studies Student at the University of Waterloo.  I was a strong advocate of unschooling and DIY at the time, but I was focused on expanding my horizons and introducing a bit more structure into my life.  Little did I know that Community Arts classes would be unlike any class that I had ever taken before!

Focused on participatory multi-media education I felt my neurons stimulated at every level.  I learned about embodied learning, how to paint an essay and expanded my knowledge of popular education. At the same time I was forced to focus on reading and writing at an academic level, and was introduced to cool new concepts like participatory action research. Five years later my experience as a community arts student is coming to a close, but I know that the learning will not stop there.

Since starting the project I have worked as a community artist in a number of capacities, from producing documentaries to facilitating youth publications, curating art shows, events and workshops.  I’ve also learned about the power of new media in youth organizing, motivating me to focus my masters research on the effect of emerging technologies like mobile phones on youth activism. As I write my last words as an academic I stare into the horizon pondering what is next.  Will I retire as a researcher, or will the skills I’ve learned as a master student continue to weave into future projects?

Come July I will be finished with my Master of Environmental Studies, my Community Arts Practice Certificate and my Universities Without Walls Fellowship.  But what do these titles even mean?  What will I do with these pieces of paper once I’ve obtained them?  Once I have the educational part of my resume sealed, what are the next steps in achieving my goals as a community artist? I feel that all three of these titles represent different potential directions that may or may not collide.  It’s like they’re parallel universes that float side by side, different dimensions in time that can only be decided by fate.

The TakingITMobile Survey is closed to new submissions. Thank you to everyone who contributed your information, as the results have been astounding. While the survey is closed that does not mean that our work is done yet! There is lots of work ahead including data analysis, writing and consulting with both youth and experts from the field about the results. While this is my masters thesis, really it’s a participatory project where all TakingITGlobal members have an opportunity to contribute. As anyone can join TakingITGlobal, that means anyone with an interest in mobile phones and youth activism can participate.

Very rich data that has been gathered by asking you the mobile youth leaders how you use your phones in your work. I am looking for TakingITMobile Working Group members who would be interested in responding to the data to see if you can find new themes. Currently I am finalizing the SPSS analysis for the quantitative version of the survey. If any of you are familiar with SPSS I would be happy to share my data as this is an open source project. I have coded the data according to both feature and issue but feel free to rearrange it as you see fit. If you want to share your feedback you can do it either on the TakingITMobile Discussion Board or by emailing me.

Of course in true Creative Commons fashion please do cite sources if you wish to further share the material. Another opportunity to volunteer with the TakingITMobile study is in helping to recruit volunteer mobile developers to the working group. Please share this group with your peers and spread the word!

Generation Sex, Y, Z is an event organized as a follow up to the launch of the Empower Manual.  Lead by a youth advisory committee, this event was 100% planned for youth by youth.  Surprisingly after putting a call out for participation we had an entirely new batch of youth volunteers.  This event was heavily geared towards youth peer sexual health educators and featured a healthy combination of youth-led community based research, workshops, games and sharing sessions.  From sexual health Twister, to workshops on healthy boundaries, this event offered something for everyone.  There was a full house for the event, and it was nice to have TRIP! volunteers and outreach workers there to help support me in the process.

The even happened at Buddies in Badtimes and it was my first time actually hosting an event there.  I was in charge of A/V, so I got to work closely with their in house tech to set up the equipment.  30 minutes before the event we started to have problems when my computer wasn’t communicating with the projector.  After trying 3 different Mac laptops and one light bulb change later we finally got the projector to communicate with the projector right as the event was starting.  It helped to have lots of students in the room, as there was a high concentration of mac laptops!  The crowd at the event was very diverse and included peer researchers involved with the Toronto Teen Survey, youth sexual health promoters, harm reduction workers, etc. It was great to be apart of such a dynamic group!

Two burritos and many avocados later my time in San Francisco was inspiring to say the least.  The Sex::Tech conference was very inspiring and I was able to attend many sessions around using new media technology for sexual health promotion, from feminism to working with LGBTQ youth, to mass media campaigns partnering with MTV. The topic that I found the most fascinating was mobile communications, especially in relation to research methodology.

While marginalized youth do not always have private access to the internet,  across the board youth were accessing mobile phones from LQBTQ street youth in NYC to high school students in Nairobi.  Not only is there a strong case for sexual health information for mobile platforms, but the technology also lends strong to epidemiological researchers.  While at the conference I learned of a epi study in the Philippines were scientists loaded cheap Nokia handsets with open source EpiSurveyor software.  Hearing about these projects inspires me to integrate new media technology into my own research methods.

The topic that I found the most fascinating was mobile communications, especially in relation to research methodology. While marginalized youth do not always have private access to the internet, across the board youth were accessing mobile phones from LQBTQ street youth in NYC to high school students in Nairobi. Not only is there a strong case for sexual health information for mobile platforms, but the technology also lends strong to epidemiological researchers. While at the conference I learned of a epi study in the Philippines were scientists loaded cheap Nokia handsets with open source EpiSurveyor software. Hearing about these projects inspires me to integrate new media technology into my own research methods. One idea I had in relation to digital storytelling methodology was getting research participants to use mobile phones to update to photo blogs during the week and use the photos to build stories off of for weekly storytelling sessions.

Speaking of mobile revolutions, my thesis research has been chugging along. It’s the last month of school and I’m finally graduating!!! I’ll have my Masters of Environmental Studies with a Community Arts Practice Certificate, with only a few months until convocation. Last week before I hit Sex::Tech I did a virtual seminar presenting my Latin American cohort data in Spanish for 50 Latin American youth mobile activists from across the Americas. It was a very intense session but I survived and my Spanish held up fairly well. Ciberactivismo con teléfonos móviles was a huge success with pages of activity on Twitter under the hashtag #ciberactivismo. I’ve embeded the PowerPoint below for you to check out en español:

This weekend I am off on my way to San Francisco for the Sex::Tech Conference. I am going with my friend Amanda Sissons, who is a social entrepreneur and multi-media designer from Ryerson University. We are both in the final stages of our program and graduating this semester. This trip is kind of a pre-graduation celebration to tease our brains, dream up new projects, sip lattes and drown ourselves in burritos. There is just a something something about the sex positive revolutionary air of San Francisco full of murals, spontaneous anarchist musicals and wifi everywhere all the time that makes my heart tingle.

I am particularly interested in this conference as it integrates sexual health promotion with technology. Ever since I was a teenager these two fields have fascinated me, especially since as I reached puberty the internet seemed to finally reach the masses. I can remember going on IRC for the first time to flirt with boys from my school, or googling (before google was a verb) FAQs on everything to do with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now the tools I grew up with are available to all youth to help explore sexuality. They can be used for both good and bad, but it’s a given that technology informs youth about sexuality in this day in age and that it can be used as a tool to help influence positive behaviours.

I think that using new media technology to promote sexual health is not just a one way conversation. Youth need to be an integral part in creating campaigns that will reach their peers with effective language and messages that are sex positive and respectful of youth choices. I’m sure that at the conference we will be able to see examples of a myriad of campaigns and see what tools have worked in different contexts. Right now at TRIP! we’re trying to reach out through social networks and we have both a Facebook Group, PureRave and Twitter account, as well as a newSMS service. As I am finishing my thesis on youth, new media and social change it’s integral that I apply these findings to my own work, and I think that Sex::Tech is the perfect space to engage in that process. While I’m in #SF I’m going to try and connect with Palomar5, a residency which my friend Zeesy Powers participated last fall in Berlin with 27 youth from around the world with the goal of reinventing the way that we work. According to their website,

This was a chance for both collaboration as well as self-expression. Furthermore it was an opportunity to network with leaders from economy, science, culture and politics and meet experts at the forefront of their fields. We’ve never imagined that the residents invited were so passionate, eager and full of ideas to blossom in this 2000sqm factory building. Us and them shared an amazing six weeks. And this was just the start. We don’t cry over the ashes we left, we carry on the fire. Stay tuned.

The next phase of Palomar5 happens to be in San Francisco in association with the Grey Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA). I will be meeting up with digi-activism Edward Harran who will be at Sex::Tech as a journalist. I’m really curious about GAFFTA as it’s located in Tenderloin, which is the same area I’ll be staying in just north of the Mission district. I have been told by my friend that lives there at it’s pretty ghetto, but is the hip new hood. Sounds a lot like Parkdale to me or maybe I should be comparing it to Dundas and Ossington. Either way it sounds like the same forces of the creative class and gentrification are having their way in cities around the world. I am in love with GAFFTA but I wonder what the effect of this artistic revival has on already high rents and other factors impacting low-income residents. Watch the video below, to see how they’re transforming the hood:

This project is a working group for TakingITGlobal members who are interested in mobile communications. The aim of this working group is to share innovation in the field of youth mobile innovation, and to brainstorm projects and solutions for the TakingITGlobal platform. By sharing examples of mobile innovation, we can examine ways of building mobile tools that are compatible with the existing mobile platform. As well this group aims to tap the larger community’s mobile practices by developing a global youth mobile survey. By sharing our practices we can start to brainstorm questions, and a survey will be distributed to the over 200,000 TakingITGlobal members. From the data gathered an environmental scan will be written up to document mobile trends among TIG users and create a list of recommendations for future applications and services. Click here to get involved!

I wanted to let you know about the Café Scientifique that I’m co-organizing! Everyone is welcome to come if you are in Toronto and we’re looking for volunteers to host workshops. Who wants to make virus dolls?! A few of my friends are going to organize HIV virus doll making (see graphic above) and break down how the virus works in the body. In knowing about how HIV operates youth can learn the value of getting tested regularly. It’s also a great pop ed activity for poz youth to understand what’s going on in their body!

ARE YOU A PEER SEXUAL HEALTH EDUCATOR? ARE YOU INTERESTED IN BECOMING ONE?

Generation Sex, Y, and Z:

Sex Ed for Youth by Youth

DATE: March 4, 2010
TIME: 6:00pm-9:00pm
COST: FREE
LOCATION: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre*
12 Alexander Street, Toronto (Nearest Subway Stop: Wellesley Station)
*Wheelchair accessible

Come join us for interactive workshops, networking, discussion groups and more! Workshops & Activities include exploring sexual health & pleasure, how to talk about sex, zine making, sexual health twister and much, much more. This Café Scientifique is sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Health Research.

Please RSVP by Tuesday, February 23 to lexie.maister@utoronto.ca.
Space is Limited. Those who RSVP will be entered into a draw for a sexy prize pack!

I just found out that I was accepted as an OHTN Universities Without Walls Fellow!! You might be thinking, what does a research scholarship on HIV research have to do with Community Arts? I plan to use Community Arts and Media as a methodology to explore narratives around HIV and AIDS working in conjunction with Central Toronto Community Health Centres’ Harm Reduction Programs, including the TRIP! Project.

Not only with this fellowship serve as seed money for me to further explore funding opportunities for Community Based Research, it will also provide cash for me to go to conferences! Already I have enrolled in Sex::Tech,which is a sexual health promotion conference that focuses on social media. I also really hope to be able to attend some of the Harm Reduction Conferences like the Club Health Conference in Zurich.

Acceptance to this fellowship is a great confidence booster for me.  I find that so often as frontline workers we have our sleeves rolled up right in the trenches.  It’s hard to see beyond the day to day work to see the larger picture of the work that we’re doing.  It’s inspiring to be in touch with other HIV researchers from diverse fields across Canada.

ArtsBridge, UCLA – Changing Positions: Bridging the University and the City Through Arts Education (Los Angeles, California).

This blog was originally created as a part of my York International Internship Placement at UCLA ArtsBridge in the summer of 2006.  For my internship placement I collaborated as a peer researcher in the VIVA! Project documenting Community Arts and Popular Education projects across the Americas.   At the beginning of the blog I talk about the ethical issues around colo(u)r corrections, media pedagogy, unconscious racism and participatory media.

I am hoping to apply for grants this year in order to fund further digital storytelling projects where I work with the clients of Queen West Community Health Centre’s harm reduction programs from the Aboriginal, Street Outreach and TRIP! programs.  In facilitating digital storytelling projects I hope to engage clients in telling stories of their relationship with HIV, contrasting their personal narratives with hegemonic stereotypes prevalent in popular culture. I also hope to partner with other youth-led groups to see what peer-based harm reduction education would look like in their contexts.

Over the summer I had the amazing opportunity to collaborate with artists Che Kothari and Rodrigo Bascunan on a short video for the Organization of American States on the power of art as a tool for fostering non-violence.  For the project Che collected footage from across the Americas on community arts programs and arts policy experts on arts and culture.  Collaborating with news stations, grassroots artists and organizations the footage was sent from across the Americas to Toronto to be transcribed and edited.

This was a really cool process for me because I’ve never used transcriptions in any of my own independent video making processes.  Working from a script Rodrigo had constructed I was able to pick out key quotes from the transcription and suggest them as voices we should highlight.  It’s so beautiful to see collaborations come to fruition.

For those of us living in Canada there are a number of options for mobile fundraising. Please encourage others to give by posting these as your status update or mass texting your contacts. Please spread the word and give back through your phone!

Text HAITI to 90999 on your cell phone to make an immediate donation of $10 to the Canadian Red Cross.

Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada (Bell/Rogers) and World Vision.

Text HAITI to 85944 to donate $5 to Rescue Union Mission and MedCorp International.

Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee