Adapting with our Community: Peer Mentorship Among the Youth of SExT: Sex Education by Theatre

• In Event: Performing Mentorship as Reciprocal Relationship

Abstract

This symposium presentation shares insights on mentorship from SExT: Sex Education by Theatre (www.sexeducationbytheatre.com), an award-winning theatre-based, culturally-relevant, peer education intervention in a priority neighborhood of Toronto designed to address the unique sex education needs of newcomer youth in Canada. Since 2014, SExT has engaged local newcomer youth as Peer Educators and performers on sexual and mental health topics. In 2019, as part of a national research project, Peer Educators with 4-6 years of experience with the program began transitioning to become Peer Mentors. The plan was for Peer Mentors to facilitate the training of 20 new Peer Educators from their home community in 2020-2021. The original plan for this presentation was to reflect on the mentorship and training of Peer Mentors to become youth arts facilitators, allowing sustainability of the program and building community capacity. Enter the COVID-19 pandemic.
The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged us to adapt our strategy to both provincial public health guidelines and the realities of youth living in the newcomer community we serve. The pandemic exacerbated existing inequities within the community, raising critical questions around how to progress with our work ethically. We grappled with whether or not to proceed with training a new cohort of Peer Educators virtually, knowing that sexual and mental health topics are considered a cultural taboo and privacy is often not possible for youth living in the area due to crowded living spaces.
As a participatory action research (PAR) project, SExT has always centred the youth voice, with the understanding that local youth possess local knowledge and experience that is crucial to understanding their own social problems and are capable of critically analyzing and reflecting on their own situations and determining their solutions (Camino, 2005; Cornwall & Jewkes, 1995; Flemingdon Health Centre, 2009; Flicker, Savan, Kolenda, & Mildenberger, 2008).
In this presentation by SExT founder, Shira Taylor and Youth Peer Mentor/Researcher, Isfandyar Virani, we will share reflections on (1) our decision to resist moving the training of new Peer Educators online during the pandemic out of a sense of responsibility to respect participants’ sociocultural realities; and (2) how we leveraged virtual opportunities to engage Peer Mentors demonstrating long-term commitment to the program in a self-study of reciprocal mentorship through focus groups, peer interviewing, field note prompts, and art-making while we await a post-COVID world that allows us to offer in-person programming.
This presentation will offer lessons learned on sustainability, systemic inequities, youth agency, mentoring through modeling, community capacity, and relationship building through mentorship and inquiry.

Authors

• Shira Taylor, Simon Fraser University

• Isfandyar Virani, University of Toronto