Educate 3-4 (or more if you have access to a class) people about a feminist issue(s) you believe is important.
To accomplish this, consider what access you have to those you’d like to educate. In other words, identify a population. Ages of the participants can start at 10, but if you’d like to teach children under 18, you need to receive permission from a parent to share your ideas.
Explain what you plan to do in the workshop with the parents of your group ahead of time so you have their full support. If a parent or parents want to sit in on the workshop, you must allow this. However, if you feel like the presence of a parent would inhibit young people from opening up, it is reasonable to share this concern with them. Feel free to show the assignment guidelines to parents as well.
Find a population that is at least neutral or, even better, receptive to your ideas. Perhaps you have younger siblings or cousins you can educate. Perhaps you are already a youth leader of some sort. Be creative and explore your social networks to find the best fit for you. You can also teach people older than yourself.
Once you identify a population, choose an issue or issues you feel is most salient for the group. If you are educating middle or high school students, bullying, hate speech, sexual harassment, and body image issues are all relevant. Male gaze theory might work better with older people. Consider the maturity level of the people you hope to reach, and what you think they’d be most interested in. If they are younger, consider what you wish you had known when you were their age and how you might have most effectively learned it.
Develop a workshop/program for your issue(s). Allow at least 45-60 minutes for the activities. Plan the best way to present your ideas. Do you want to use media? If so, make sure it is all working smoothly.
Part two: Write-up – After you conduct the workshop, write a 4-6 page paper exploring the following items:
1. Describe the population.
2. Explain what issue(s) you chose and why.
3. Explain how you taught them the material. Share the workshop materials. If you used any hand-outs, include them with the paper.
4. Explore how it went. Were you happy with their responses? How engaged were they? Do you think you were effective? What do you believe they will remember down the road? Did you enjoy yourself? Were you nervous? Did anything unexpected happen? What did you think of it all? Would you do anything differently a second time? What? Why?
5. Conclude by exploring what you learned from doing this project.
