January 8th, 2018

Southwood Drama has been busy working on their latest show #MeToo in response to the issue of consent in our society and local community.

This week teacher’s signed up to bring their classes to these performances throughout the week. This performance was collaboratively written by the Senior drama class and directed by Ms. Amy Cruickshank.
The students began working on this piece in September in partnership with the Waterloo Regional Police. Southwood’s school resource officer, Constable Churm described getting calls on a weekly basis for issues surrounding consent. The students also consulted with the school’s guidance department, the Child and Youth Worker, and Social Worker when collaboratively writing this script.

One month into their work, there was an explosion of media coverage on issues of consent in Hollywood, which broke the stigma and culture of silence around coming forward to speak truth to victims’ experiences surrounding harassment and assault. These students closely followed the #MeToo social media movement which further inspired their work on this performance piece.

The goal with this performance piece is to inform and educate others about consent, but also give a voice to empower victims. The stories and experiences the students have collected are not fictional, and they are not hypothetical, they are real and reflect our school and our community.

Consent is a difficult subject, and planning and putting this piece together was difficult at times for the students. However, in spite of these difficulties, they continued to persevere because getting a clear message out far surpasses the difficulty of this topic. The only way to teach people, and to make this subject a little less taboo in our society is to talk about it openly and truthfully.

There will be a Community Awareness Night on Friday, January 12, 2018 at 7:00pm at Southwood. This event will consist of 4-5 guest speakers and then the performance of #MeToo.

Categories: Events