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Arctic FOXY starts sessions for teen boys Talking to young men is really different than talking to young women Tuesday May 19 2015 11 HEALTH WELLNESS SEXUAL HEALTH Minimum wage rate in the NWT The Honourable Jackson Lafferty Minister of Education Culture and Employment is pleased to announce that effective June 1 2015 the minimum wage rate in the NWT will be 12.50 per hour. For more information please visit www.ece.gov.nt.ca. YES I want to join the winning NDP team. Lets build the Canada we know is possible. YES I want to join the winning NDP team. Lets build the Canada we know is possible. Name Address Phone Email Im a Canadian Citizen or Permanent Resident of Can- ada and Im making this con- tribution with my personal account and not a corporate account. I have read and I agree with the NDP Member Declaration available at www.ndp.ca. Je prfre recevoir ma correspondance en franais. Id like to receive email updates for Canadas NDP. Please indicate if you identify as part of one of the following equity seek- ing groups and would like to receive mail on relevant issues First Nations Mtis Inuit Gay lesbian bisexual transgendered Person living with a disability Visible minority WomanI am a member of a union. I am under employed. My age is 26 years or less. You need to clip and send in this form right away if you want to vote in the coming Nomination Meeting Mail this form and a cheque for 10 to NWT NDP P.O. Box 2185 Yellowknife NT X1A 2P6 YOUR ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FEE 10 By DALI CARMICHAEL Over the last three years the creative arts- based sexual health awareness and empow- erment group Arctic FOXY Fostering Open eXpression among Youth has strictly catered to the needs of teenage girls. But with new funding in place after win- ning the 1-million Arctic Inspiration Prize earlier this year co-ordinators are now turn- ing their attention to the needs of young men of the same age group. Last week the organization initiated a series of focus group discussion sessions with men in Yellowknife to determine what the male equivalent of FOXY programming could include. This information is really going to help us gure out how to talk to young men said Nancy MacNeill one of the founders of FOXY. There is a lot of emphasis on teaching sexual health information to young women and what we found is that a lot of the infor- mation and a lot of the attitudes that we take for granted about sexual health boys have never even heard them. MacNeill said she was blown away by the discussions that arose during the rst com- munity session held May 9 at the Yellowknife Inn Copper Room in Yellowknife. It was really interesting professionally and we got so much good information that were going to be able to use to adapt FOXY MacNeill told The Journal. It wasnt so much about content but the guys really shared how guys learn which was really interesting and totally not what I was expecting to hear. They were so open they were really engaged they literally talked for three hours straight. About a dozen men aged 28 to 61 contrib- uted their experiences to the discussion. It just opened my eyes Boys are living in a totally different world that girls. Theres so much stuff that theyre dealing with Mac- Neill said. I never really realized the social pressures on guys. I knew that they were there but I never really acknowledged how foundational it could be to tell a little boy to stop crying and that he didnt need to talk about his problems. There were some guys who could literally draw it back to a moment like that where they were told as a little boy to grow up and be a man or that a man always knows the right thing to do kind of thing. They could draw a direct link between that and their unhealthy attitudes towards women later in life. Over the next few months FOXY will be using the information gathered through the sessions to develop programming for young men throughout the NWT with the hopes of kicking off focus testing for the workshops in the new school year. The group plans to soon hire a team of three or four men who will act as program facilitators running workshops parallel to the ones MacNeill and her team already run with girls. We have these guys who...have so much passion and care for this program so we want to utilize them and their expertise and their knowledge as much as we can she said. What Im hearing that might lead to a change is young men may benet from more shorter term ongoing trust building as opposed to one-day workshops. Figuring out how to implement that kind of learning into the FOXY model will be a priority MacNeill said. FOXYs mandate is to improve sexual health and relationships around the North- west Territories and our goal is really to use the arts to create a safer place and a safer re- lationships for everybody she said. FOXY also hosts an annual peer leadership retreat for girls at Blachford Lake Lodge. The opportunity allows youth to immerse them- selves in a safe and supportive environment where they learn about everything from sex- uality to self-empowerment through arts programming and interactions with other female role models. Eventually the FOXY crew hopes to have a similar annual event for boys as well. Two more community sessions will be held on May 19 and May 21 at 600 p.m. in the Yel- lowknife Inn Copper Room. Im looking for people to speak to the male experience MacNeill said. If someone iden- ties as trans thats still a male experience and we still want to hear from them. Men from communities outside of Yel- lowknife who want to have input in the pro- gramming can contact MacNeill at nancy arcticfoxy.com. For girls looking to attend this years peer leadership retreat in July the deadline to apply is May 31. For more details head to httparcticfoxy.com PhotocourtesyofFOXY In the near future the coordinators of FOXY hope to have a peer leadership retreat for boys parallel to the programming they run every summer at Blachford Lake Lodge for girls. They also plan to initiate touring school workshops targeted toward boys.