International Women’s Day in the North East

National World - LocalTV

NE Youth hosted an International Women’s Day party to celebrate women and to raise crucial funds for young girls in need of support, here in the North East.

Transcript

00:00NA Youth have celebrated International Women's Day by hosting an event filled with games,

00:05raffles and live music from local independent artist Shani. I caught up with Dame McDonald

00:10who arranged this event to find out more about NA Youth's 90 year anniversary.

00:16So we're celebrating International Women's Day. We've been doing this for about nine

00:20years, right ahead of the curve nine years ago, celebrating being a woman, celebrating

00:27the projects that we run for NA Youth for young girls and women, having a party and

00:31raising a bit of money. So some of the projects we run at NA Youth, one is Healing Hearts

00:36and Minds, and that's one-to-one sessions with young girls who maybe have had difficulty

00:41at home, difficulty at school, and a youth worker will sit with them, go through, help

00:48them with job applications, help them build their confidence back up. It's so important

00:52at the moment, more than any time, to be helping young girls and women, because it

00:57ain't a great world out there at the moment. So that's one of the projects. The money raised

01:01tonight will be specifically for the young girls and women's projects for NA Youth. The

01:05great thing is it's NA Youth's 90th anniversary this year, so we're trying to raise £90,000

01:11in the year. It's going to be difficult, but the way that it's benefiting, the money we

01:16raise will directly go to young people of the North East and the projects that we run

01:21and the programmes we run all across the North East, all across Durham, Teesside. It really

01:27does make a difference. So night's like tonight, where we're all going to have fun, we're all

01:30going to have a party, but we're raising money at the same time.

01:34I also caught up with Channy, who was taking the spotlight to help get the party started.

01:39We spoke about her involvement with NA Youth and what it means to be a woman in the North

01:43East and in the music industry.

01:45I'm a singer-songwriter and an independent artist from Newcastle, and I'm also a young

01:50ambassador for NA Youth, so I get the privilege to come to events like this and get involved

01:55and get stuck in, and also the majority of the time perform as well, be a little bit

02:00of live entertainment and hopefully get the crowd on their feet and just boost the energy

02:04up a little bit. So that's why I'm here today.

02:07International Women's Day is just so much more than what people see it as, especially

02:12for me, because in the industry I'm in, I feel like it's very male-dominated. I feel

02:18like as a woman, if we say something that's assertive or we kind of are a little bit like

02:24within my industry, I feel like if we stand up and say, oh, we kind of don't like that

02:27or we're not happy with that or whatever, we're kind of like bracketed in a different

02:32way to how a man would be bracketed. And because I'm such an opinionated person anyway, I feel

02:39like sometimes I'm very misunderstood and it baffles us a little bit because I just

02:45want to be respected and appreciated the way men are appreciated and respected. I

02:50don't feel like that necessarily outside of what I do, but in the music industry I feel

02:56like we've got a lot of learning to do. I feel like we've got a lot to overcome.

Category

Transcript

Recommended