Our process was to have weekly meetings on Wednesdays at 7:30 am. In these meetings we planned events, assigned tasks, and also made reflections on how things were going.
We decided we wanted to make a campaign that would be supported by different events in our school. We decided on the hashtag #BlurTheLines, and wanted to promote the idea of blurring the lines of gender expectations.
Our first event was a screening of Miss Representation, a documentary about gender and media. We held the event after school, and offered free food and raffle prizes to increase attendance. As a group, we went around to different classes in our school and advertised the event, telling them how important this subject was to us. After the screening, we had 10 community circles led by a member of our GBLA team. We each led a discussion of 10 students, asking them questions about how the movie applied to their lives.
Our next event will be on April 27th, and will be about blurring the lines of gender and physical activity. We are having a jiujitsu self defense class, followed by a yoga class. We asking that boys and girls participate in both sports, and then we will talk about why martial arts are considered mostly a boy's sport, and why yoga is considered a girls' sport. We are hoping to highlight the benefits of each, and connect that to why it is important to #BlurTheLines and embrace qualities from each.
We are also recording interviews with parents, students and teachers to complete a podcast about how gender stereotypes affect us, and how we see them in our daily lives. We will present selections of this at the Expo.
Our process as a team has been to work with two project managers, and to assign tasks. We have worked collaboratively, and as a group have learned a lot about how much work it takes to create events and get momentum going for a social awareness campaign.