She calls herself one of those ādirty, poor kidsāāout of her momās house when she turned 16 and since then constantly on the move.Ā
From her usual perch on a curb or the sidewalk in yet another city, her perspective is one of a young person looking up.
āWhen you live on the street, you are literally beneath people, so you start to feel that way too,ā says Janine, her black hoodie pulled up so it obscures her pale face. āWeāre looked down on too. People donāt understand us at all.
āBut I have decided that I can get up. Iām not going to sit anymore.ā
Extending a hand in support is an innovative film project out of pilipiliĀž» which is giving homeless youth the tools and the knowledge to tell their own stories about life on the street. For the past three months, a small group of five street kidsātogether with youth worker Darcy Harvey, a Dalhousie social work grad, and filmmaker Bryan Hofbauer, who has produced such films as 3 Needles and The Eventāhave been meeting three days a week in an empty storefront on Agricola Street. The participants have learned such skills as camera work, storyboarding, how to develop characters, script writing, editing and composing.
In the case of Janineānot her real nameāsheās learned a lot more besides. As a talented artist who enjoys drawing and painting, she felt the best medium for her film about life on the street was animation. That meant she had to learn how to do it.
āItās been so nice to have someone say, āWhat do you need?āā says the 21-year-old who no longer lives on the street. āIt was never āno.ā It was always, āweāll find a way.āā
The film project is the initiative of Jeff Karabanow with Dalās School of Social Work and Jean Hughes with the School of Nursing. The project is funded through a $50,000 dissemination grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.Ā
The professors had collaborated on a research paper, āCan you be healthy on the street?ā published last summer in the Canadian Journal of Urban Research. But for Dr. Karabanow, who worked on a documentary with street kids in Guatemala a few years ago, it wasnāt enough. āI wanted a more popular medium and to have young people speak for themselves,ā he says.
The students are now putting finishing touches on three short films. Besides Janineās animated film which illustrates a poem she wrote, there are two documentaries. One, about the challenges of working with street youth, has inspired its creator to enroll in community college in Truro as a youth worker. In the other, a 25-year-old couch surfer who was kicked out of the family home when he was 15 has interviewed street kids about their mental health and the challenges of getting by day to day. āI think they connect with me because Iām on the same level as them,ā he explains.
Dr. Karabanow says heās blown away by the talent heās seen. He hopes the films will get an audience at local schools and film festivals across the country, including the Atlantic Film Festivalās Viewfinders International Film Festival for Youth, in Halifax next spring.
āThis experience reiterated to me just how talented and passionate these young people are,ā he says. āIt reminds me how much creativity they have, and not only in surviving on the street.ā
Heās so impressed that heās hired two of the participants to pitch in on a new research study, about the work young people do to support themselves when theyāre homeless. The $50,000 study funded by federal department of Human Resources and Social Development, will involve in-depth interviews with 40 street kids locally and 20 service providers across Canada.
āMost of these kids are working, whether theyāre panhandling, squeegeeing or doing day labour in the formal economy. What weāre seeing is that the Nova Scotiaās safe street legislation which prohibits these activities is pushing kids back into illegal activity, the hidden economy. And they are feeling attacked for being poor and being different.ā