UNITY is aimed at girls and gender diverse people aged 10-12 in the Bankstown area. This 12-week early intervention music mentoring program teaches singing and songwriting through the lens of talking about what makes up healthy relationships with our community, family, friends, peers and ourselves. The participants will learn about and celebrate diversity, intersectionality, consent, boundaries, respect and body positivity. They will critically deconstruct negative messages that they are receiving about gender stereotypes and relationships, and use creative self-expression through songwriting to explore these topics and inspire a brighter future world. The participants will write a song about what they’ve learnt and record a music video.
UNITY was designed in collaboration with our community working group of young people, teachers, parents, partner organisations and social service organisations. It is also building on the well established foundations of our RESPECT program, a similar project for young boys that has been operating in local primary schools for the last 7 years. Respect has been evaluated by three Universities and has been found to increase awareness and understanding of domestic violence and healthy relationships in 98% of participants. Teachers tell us about the culture of the school shifting over the years that we return. We believe we’ll replicate this success using the framework.
UNITY will empower participants to:
Facilitators will be representative of the demographics as it is important for young people to see themselves in role models.
We are collaborating with OurWatch as evaluation design consultants to measure qualitative data by what the participants learn and gain from the program and quantitative data through percentages of changed attitudes, understandings of concepts and information learnt.
Pre and post interviews will be conducted.
At the end of workshops we will ask participants to articulate what they learnt and will have facilitators conduct a debrief using an evaluation sheet and follow up with teachers or counsellors if necessary.
We will generate and share impact reports. As well as keeping our website updated with statistics and information relevant within society and our community. We will also generate and share social media posts for our local community about statistics and information as well as share from the workshops what the participants create.
For example, in one workshop we will create inspiration dolls. The participants will create paper dolls of the women who inspire and support them. We will create a song with each cohort with information about the project at the end.
Participants will perform at conferences and in public, spreading awareness. Our Artistic Director + CEO will speak at events about UNITY. And our active connections with community networks allow us to share our knowledge. Networks we belong to:
Outloud is an intersectional, CALD-focused social impact arts organisation that creates genuine, meaningful, inspiring opportunities for young people in Western Sydney.
Our award-winning projects address nationally relevant issues that are affecting young people in Western Sydney. We use community-embedded contemporary arts to drive positive change for young people with best practice, evidence-based programs that are fun and inspiring. We specialise in early-intervention harm-reduction that celebrates strengths and amplifies socially-marginalised young people’s thoughts and ideas. We put a spotlight on global issues that are affecting our local young people and amplify their thoughts and ideas. We elevate skills and confidence and aim to build self-efficacy and social cohesion.
By acknowledging the differences between males and females we can raise the bar on the effectiveness of all philanthropy.
Also known as Australian Women Donors Network (ABN: 28 141 197 471), Australians Investing in Women is a registered charity endorsed by the Australian Tax Office as a deductible gift recipient (DGR1) under a special listing, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.