[00:00:01] Madeline: Hello and welcome to SHE SOARS. Her Voice. Her Rights.

[00:00:05] Amal: We are CARE Canada’s Youth Champions, a group of young people across Canada who are passionate advocates for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).

[00:00:13] Lauren: We’re excited to discuss and raise awareness about young women’s rights and choices in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:00:20] Amal: Together, we will explore how these global issues connect to our lives as Canadian youth and discover ways in which we can all take action.

[00:00:27] Lauren: We will also talk about the SHE SOARS* project, which improves access to health and education, which are areas we want to see change in.

[00:00:34] Everyone: Join us!

[00:00:37] Madeline: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the SHE SOARS podcast. This is actually our last episode of season two. We hope you have been listening and learning alongside us throughout the season. We’re really excited to continue connecting with everyone when we start up season three but also in some new ways as well.

[00:00:55] I’m Madeline. I’m one of CARE Canada’s Youth Champions. You might remember me from some of our previous episodes, including the last one where we spoke with Musonda from AAA Zambia, which is a partner organization in the SHE SOARS project. she explained about youth-led advocacy efforts in Zambia and helped us to break down some common myths and misconceptions that young people face when it comes to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

[00:01:22] So today I am joined by Shannon, another one of the Youth Champions, and we’re going to be shifting gears a little bit to speak about youth-led advocacy in the Canadian SRHR space and discuss some of the myths and misconceptions that Canadian youth might encounter. We also want to share the story of a really inspiring youth-led organization in Canada and talk about some ideas for how young people can get more involved in advocacy.

[00:01:47] Shannon: Thanks Madeline. I’m so excited to introduce our guest today, Rae Jardine, who is the founder and Executive Director of SRHR Hubs, a youth-led organization launched in Toronto in 2020 that aims to improve access to SRHR supplies and resources. Rae also has a decade of experience working in the nonprofit sector and as a community organizer and activist. Thank you so much for joining us Rae. Can you tell us a little bit more about your background and how SRHR Hubs got started?

[00:02:16] Rae: Thank you so much for having me. I always like to say that, like many people who work in this space, I didn’t plan to be here. I fell into doing this work. If you were to ask me what I wanted to do when I was 18 years old, my high school yearbook says that I was going to be a diplomat. So I graduated high school, went off to study international relations, then found my love for human rights and political economy.

[00:02:46] I wanted to do a semester abroad and was hoping to work in feminist microfinance but I was picked up by an organization called the Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS, or AGHA, in Kampala, Uganda. And I got thrown into this new world that was really terrifying. I didn’t know anything about sexual and reproductive health, having grown up in rural New Brunswick where we’re taught abstinence, but I took the opportunity. I learned a lot and fell in love with the East African and global SRHR spaces and really thought this might be something that I could do with my life. So I worked in Uganda for a bit, returned home to Canada, finished my undergraduate degree, and then decided to go to graduate school and focus on global development.

[00:03:39] I wanted to critically analyze all the things that I had seen working in the development sector abroad but I really missed that SRHR work I had been doing when I came back to Canada. So I had set myself up to work in HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in Ontario when I finished my Master’s, but then the pandemic happened. So the job that I had set myself up with ceased to exist and I was unemployed and had moved to Toronto.

[00:04:08] I decided to try and find something to do with my spare time and realized that all of the SRHR organizations in the city of Toronto were essentially closing their doors because SRHR was deemed non-essential. That didn’t really sit right with me because I was thinking people out there still need access to condoms, period products and education, pandemic or no pandemic.

[00:04:34] So I got some funding and started a community project to go around Toronto and deliver items to the community. And the rest is kind of history. That’s how my start in SRHR came to be.

[00:04:48] Shannon: Amazing. Thank you so much for telling us a little bit about your journey. SRHR is such an interesting space because often there are so many people from such different backgrounds coming together. We would also love to hear about why you felt like it was important for young people to be supporting other young people with SRHR resources when it comes to SRHR Hubs.

[00:05:09] Rae: Absolutely. I think especially in Canada there is a need for youth-led organizations and youth-led work. Our SRHR space is really siloed. We’re not doing a great job connecting with each other, collaborating, sharing resources and looking at new approaches. So it is really important for youth to come into community with each other to make those connections and dialogue.

[00:05:33] There is something so impactful about being able to engage with other people who can maybe share some of your experiences, who there is a level of comfort with. Oftentimes there is some disconnect when you’re speaking with people who are health professionals or people with a lot more experience than you.

[00:05:52] So I think it’s really important for youth to come together and be able to talk to each other, discuss their problems and work together to create solutions. Oftentimes, people who aren’t youth can be stuck in their ways and business as usual. And youth are really great about making things happen and re-envisioning really what they want to see in the SRHR space.

[00:06:17] Shannon: Those are some great points. SHE SOARS is also a youth-led project so you’re in good company. You have touched a little bit on SRHR Hubs and its goal. I think we would also love to hear a bit more about how it operates and how resources are actually delivered to young people in the community.

[00:06:35] Rae: Absolutely. So first off, how we operate, we are a youth-led organization. So everyone who is in positions of power on our team are under 30 years of age. That doesn’t mean that we are just youth. That is often a misconception with youth-led organizations is that you are only youth and you are only serving youth.

[00:06:55] But we serve all age groups. In addition to youth, we have had volunteers as old as 75 partaking in our projects. We are a low-resource, community-led grassroots group so our funding tends to be unsustainable. Our team is a fantastic group of passionate volunteers, although we’re working to change that and trying to get funding to be able to compensate ourselves for our labor.

[00:07:19] But we are able to deliver resources to the community in a number of ways. So we started with delivering the tangible resources, making sure people had condoms and period products. And now we have added a few more things to our portfolio. So our pillars of our organization are direct community support, education, research and advocacy.

[00:07:40] We’re developing resources to inform youth and others about topics related to SRHR. We’re doing formal and informal research to further the knowledge gaps in the sector and we’re advocating for change not only in terms of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, but also looking at the people who are doing this work and how can we advocate for better funding conditions, better working relationships with government entities and that kind of thing. So with our hubs model and the resources, we focus on bringing people, resources and knowledge together, encouraging collaboration and projects to be created by the community for the community.

[00:08:22] Our director of program management, Tony, says it best. She often talks about how our pillars and getting resources out to the community go hand in hand. It’s one thing to be given a condom but you also need to know why you should use it, how you should use it, and be able to advocate for yourself to actually use it when you’re having sex. So a lot of our work goes hand in hand and reinforces each other.

[00:08:46] Madeline: It sounds like the work you’re doing is very comprehensive and covering a lot of the really important points. As I understand it, youth can reach out directly to SRHR Hubs with their needs. So we were wondering if you have noticed any trends in the types of resources or information young people are looking for or asking about.

[00:09:07] Rae: I have noticed more and more that youth are dismantling the taboos and the stigmas surrounding sexual and reproductive health. They’re hungry to learn and unlearn and they’re asking over the years harder and harder questions, which is amazing. They’re really interrogating what isn’t working in the system, whether that be a lack of cultural competency or affirming services, or accessibility or affordability. One trend that we noticed quite prominently during the lockdown period of the pandemic was that menstruators were not able to access period products at this time in Ontario. We were being told that one person per household should be going to the grocery store once a week. In a lot of cases, that person was not a menstruator and might be somebody’s father.

[00:09:55] So there was a level of discomfort in asking a man to buy period products. In particular, a lot of youth were coming to us saying that they normally use tampons but they had to do so in secret because their parents prohibited them from using them due to misinformation. So we were getting a lot of requests to go and do secret deliveries of period products during the early days of the pandemic.

[00:10:15] Literally I would take the subway around Toronto and drop off packages in people’s ditches or meet them in a park, that kind of thing. So that was one trend we really noticed. In recent years, also with the attacks on the right to abortion in the United States, we have many youth coming to us who see a lot of American social media content and think that abortion is illegal in Canada.

[00:10:39] That is a trend we have noticed. And broader with social media, on one hand, it’s great. We can have a lot of dialogues about SRHR but at the same time anyone can post just about anything so we’re seeing more and more youth ask us questions about very questionable things they have seen on the internet. Overall, we are getting a lot of the same asks. And as youth, they may know more than other generations but they’re still not really knowing how to access services in their community or they’re experiencing issues.

[00:11:08] So that is the most common thing we are seeing is still those barriers to accessing abortion, accessing STI (sexually transmitted diseases) testing, or a very frequent one is they were not vaccinated for HPV (human papilloma virus) in school because their parents didn’t believe in it. Now they are looking to access that as an adult of their own accord but they’re being asked to pay out-of-pocket and they can’t afford that. So the most common stuff we’re seeing is still the same issues.

[00:11:32] Madeline: Thanks, and you touched on this a little bit, but I was wondering if there are any specific common myths and misconceptions that you have noticed related to sexual and reproductive health amongst the youth who you have engaged with as part of SRHR Hubs.

[00:11:47] Rae: Yeah. One of the biggest myths that we come up against all the time is that sex ed is just about sex. It’s an awkward conversation with my parents and an awkward lesson once per year in school, and that’s it. We’re going learn about how sex happens and how a baby is made and that’s it. Sex ed should be way more than that.

[00:12:07] We should be talking about bodies and self advocacy and media literacy and all kinds of things. Oftentimes it’s a misconception of what is included in sex ed. Other myths and misconceptions that we hear all the time are the prevailing things like you can’t get pregnant if it’s your first time having sex or you can’t get pregnant if you’re on your period. Another myth that we also often hear from youth is everybody is having sex but I’m not having sex.

[00:12:36] Is there something wrong with me? They are also misconceptions about what sex is, what sex means, what sex should look like, and misconceptions about language and terminology so things like, for example, that the words vulva and vagina are interchangeable. They are not. Those are a lot of the common myths and misconceptions that we have heard over the years.

[00:13:01] Shannon: Thanks for highlighting those. So clearly there are so many myths and misconceptions in the SRHR space and I think it can be really hard for young people to find safe spaces to ask those questions that they have. It’s amazing that SRHR Hubs is one of those safe spaces that young people in Toronto are able to come and ask those questions and really break down those myths and misconceptions.

[00:13:25] We did a poll with our Instagram followers recently and we found that a quarter or 75 percent of respondents said they had heard the myth that sex education encourages early sexual activity. Whether or not young people are buying into this myth or not, the fact that so many people are still hearing it tells us that it is such a common and recurring myth. So based on your experience with SRHR Hubs, how would you respond to people who do believe this?

[00:13:54] Rae: First off, I’m so glad that you folks are bringing this up. This is a very common one and there is a great body of research that disproves this myth. Comprehensive Sex Education, or CSE as we often shorten it, has been shown to delay when youth start having sex. It also makes youth more likely to have healthier relationships and use contraception.

[00:14:19] And really, when I think about this myth, what it boils down to for me is as human beings, we’re really drawn in by the curiosity, the mystique, the risk or the danger of sex. But when we’re opening up and talking about sex and bodies and prioritizing wellbeing, teaching consent and how to self advocate, it really dismantles what I like to call the peer pressure panics.

[00:14:42] When we’re having those conversations, opening up, creating a safe space for youth to ask questions, learn and unlearn, it is actually preparing youth to make decisions for themselves about whether or not they are going to have sex, about what [they want] the relationships in their life to look like.

[00:15:02] So when we’re having those conversations and doing that education piece, it’s really making youth stop and think: Is this the right time for this for me? Do I want to, as in the past was really popular, rush out and have sex just to lose your virginity and be done with it? We’re really seeing youth begin to interrogate what that used to look like and make decisions for themselves and be more confident to be able to say, no, I think I’m going to wait, or no, I want something that looks like this. So with Comprehensive Sexuality Education we’re seeing great progress in that youth are making better choices for themselves and their health and wellbeing.

[00:15:45] Madeline: Thanks for that answer, Rae. I agree that it is so important to make sure people have access to information and know what research has been done and what is out there. I know another common misconception with regards to SRHR is that sex education is not compatible with faith and religion. Since Toronto is such a diverse city, can you speak to this a bit and maybe give an example of how you have navigated diverse cultural and religious views in your SRHR work?

[00:16:15] Rae: Absolutely. Sex education is compatible with all faiths, religions and cultural groups. So I know sex educators from all walks of life and all backgrounds. For me, the way that I approach sex education and cultural competency and religious and faith-based communities is first off thinking if I am really the best person to be having these dialogues in this setting.

[00:16:42] So a recent example, I was asked to do some sex education in a community that I’m not from. I didn’t really have a great understanding of their traditions, their values, their culture and their faith. So I actually met with the client and said, “I don’t think I’m the right person for you. Here’s a list of people who I think would be a better fit. Maybe try and approach them.”

[00:17:02] So first off is knowing what you know and not forcing yourself to pretend to be an expert in everything. That is the number one tip I have for sex educators and people interested in SRHR. It is such a massive field. You’re never going to know everything. And that is okay. The other thing when it comes to faith and religion is oftentimes we can get stuck in this mindset that there is a spectrum of SRHR and it has two ends. One end is the people who are very passionate, out in the communities fighting for rights, and we have the other end who actually oppose sexual and reproductive health in its entirety. But that is actually not the case. This spectrum actually has a lot of different viewpoints in the middle of people with different comfort levels.

[00:17:50] So when I am walking into a setting that is maybe not as accepting of SRHR, I can meet them where they’re at. So maybe they don’t want to talk about really radical–for lack of better words–sex education. Maybe I can start talking about puberty or bodies. We all have bodies.

[00:18:12] Start with topics that are a bit more approachable and through time, build relationships, slowly increase the comfort level and have those conversations start. Whereas if you just rush right in and attack like they’re wrong and you’re right, you’re really losing an opportunity to open up the SRHR space at all.

[00:18:32] In another case that was quite recent, I went into a group and started opening up the discussion by asking them: What cultural words do you have? What practices have you been told and what do you think about that? A big part for me is opening the door slowly, creating those conversations, creating those relationships and being cognizant that sex education can look like a lot of different things.

[00:19:02] There is no one right way. We should not be using those one size fits all approaches. So thinking about who we’re including and who we’re excluding and looking outside of just western knowledge. And one really great thing about that is we can reach more people with the new methods of education like online access; people don’t have to walk into a public location or a classroom like it used to be.

[00:19:30] Shannon: Thank you so much for those insights, Rae. I think sex education can be such a polarizing topic but in a lot of ways it doesn’t have to be. So it’s great to hear about some of the work that you have done to look for areas of common understanding. SRHR Hubs is such a great example as well of young people identifying a problem like you have done during lockdown and finding a way to lead and build their own solution.

[00:19:56] So I’m wondering what advice you have for other young people who are navigating SRHR issues in their own lives and communities but may not know where to start.

[00:20:04] Rae: Absolutely. So my best advice, first off, is don’t rush off and try to take on these big projects and save the world. You can actually start small and I always encourage people to start with themselves. Think about your own capacity, your interests, what you want to see in the community, and making connections. Also taking care of yourself while you’re doing work for your communities. A lot of times we glamorize these big actions of starting an organization or leading a movement. But really I encourage people to start with the small things. So volunteer with organizations that already exist, fundraise for a cause, sign a petition, attend an event or write a letter to your politicians.

[00:20:57] Those small things can be just as important, if not more important, than the big things. So I actually don’t encourage people often to run out and start an organization. Oftentimes we don’t need more organizations. We don’t need six people doing the same work and not talking to each other. Is there a way that you can collaborate with other people who are doing this work or who share your values? But at the same time, [when it comes to] these bigger issues and these bigger venues, I tell people to not be afraid to work your way into big spaces. Don’t be afraid to be told no. Look at the international space. Don’t just look at your community. See if you can get connected to other people who share your views from around the world or share your values.

[00:21:40] Being involved in the SRHR space and solving problems doesn’t have to be changing the world. You just have to get started in a way that makes sense for you and your own journey. If you’re navigating health issues in your own life, maybe you just focus on self-advocacy and getting yourself what you need. There is no shame in that. And in doing that, you’re actually contributing to the bigger picture. In Canada, I always say that we don’t have a strong domestic space for SRHR. So whatever you do, you are really contributing. And you are doing things that are needed.

[00:22:16] Shannon: That’s really great advice, Rae. And I think what you’re pointing to is that a large number of people taking even those small steps can lead to really big change collectively. I would love to actually ask a bonus question. So one thing that I picked up on when you were describing your background is that you have quite a bit of global experience but the work of SRHR Hubs, of course, is focused on Toronto and domestic issues in Canada. This stood out to me because our work [as the Youth Champions] has been really focused on trying to draw connections between the universal SRHR issues and themes and how that plays out domestically in Canada and the work of the SHE SOARS project in Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia, which, of course is going to look quite different. So I would be curious to hear any insights you might have on how that global perspective that you bring to your work locally has added value.

[00:23:21] Rae: Absolutely. I think one of the biggest things that I bring to the SRHR space in Canada is I know what a very strong youth-led and SRHR space looks like. I was so privileged to work in Uganda, which has been doing this work and is way ahead of Canada in terms of Meaningful Youth Engagement in terms of the funding that they are able to receive, the way in which they have formed a community and collaborate with each other to work in consortiums and working groups and have these strong working relationships.

[00:23:55] That has really shaped what I have brought to the Canadian space. That is why I started SRHR Hubs because I knew what it looks like on the other side of the world and what it can look like and the amazing wins that we can secure together when we’re working together. And that is really what drove me to start SRHR Hubs is that we have so much to learn from the rest of the world.

[00:24:21] In Canada, sometimes we get this reputation for being really great at human rights and we’re ahead and whatnot. And oftentimes that reputation is not deserved. So I think coming into the Canadian space with that understanding and that critical perspective has really helped me on my journey to creating that kind of space in Canada and driving forth advocacy and trying to make our space better and reach some of those goals in the global community.

[00:24:52] Madeline: Thanks Rae. I think those are some really insightful connections and very much relevant to the work that we are trying to do as part of the Youth Champions on the SHE SOARS project. I think those are all the questions we have for you today. So thank you very much for joining us and I feel really grateful to have been able to be a part of this conversation.

[00:25:13] Rae: Thank you so much for having me. I always love to talk about everything SRHR and thank you so much for all the work that you folks are doing both domestically and in creating connections with the global SRHR community. We are all so much better for the fantastic work that you folks are doing. 

[00:25:32] Madeline: Thank you also to everyone who was listening today. As I mentioned at the top of the episode, we will be taking a bit of a break before we come back with some new speakers and some new, exciting topics for season three. But make sure to stay in touch with the Youth Champions on CARE Canada’s Instagram account, which is @carecanada. And also stay tuned for a very exciting virtual advocacy event that we’re planning on bringing to you in the near future with even more ways you can learn and get involved in sexual and reproductive health.

[00:26:02] Amal: Thanks for listening to SHE SOARS. If you liked this episode, please share it on social media, connect with us in the comments or give us a like.

[00:26:10] Lauren: Make sure to catch our next episode by subscribing to our channel and following us wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:26:16] Madeline: Follow @carecanada on Instagram for updates on our show and the project.

[00:26:21] Lauren: SHE SOARS stands for Sexual and reproductive Health and Economic empowerment supporting Out-of-school Adolescent girls’ Rights and Skills in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:26:31] Madeline: The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. Check out our global partner organizations:

[00:26:34] Amal: Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Restless Development for even more project updates.

[00:26:46] Lauren: Thanks again for listening. Until next time!