HERo

HERo is a social initiative that promotes gender equality and raises awareness about issues like stereotypes, discrimination against women, and gender bias through short films on YouTube, coupled with a social media campaign. The fact that these films were entirely ideated, scripted, directed and edited by high school students aged 17-18 years, makes these films highly realistic and relatable. We addressed issues that we face in our classrooms or our families, or in our social outreaches. Our first two films were called “The Rulebook”, which focused on the norms we are expected to conform to as young men and women. One of our team members (Trisha) wrote a poem called “Playtime”, which explored the theme of objectification of women.

We decided on the idea to use a clay figurine to get the poem to come alive. Ms Shantelle helped us turn our vision into reality. We helped her structure the clay model of the video. We also wrote the poem on the white board. We also needed a voiceover for the poem. Mr Pillow's recording was extremely emotional, with perfect intonation for the poem's theme. However, we decided we needed a female voice in order to send the message from a woman's perspective. We then worked on the set of the film. We used all kinds of things to achieve the effect, paint brushes, paint jars, clay models and pottery tools, to make the art room look like a work shop . Shiven, the director of this video, showed everyone the camera angles that they needed.

Our knowledge of Carol Ann Duffy and Margaret Atwood's poetic works studied in English class combatted subjects of gender inequality. We truly understood their significance in today's day when we read Trisha's poem, "Playtime" that embodied similar themes and dealt with idea of women breaking free from gender stereotypes. We wrongly assumed that the poems (written in the 1970s) were outdated and weren't applicable in a modern context.

Upon reading Trisha's poem and understanding its reach, we realized that women in a modern society are still subject to tremendous amounts of inequality. While the situation was most definitely improving in a global context, there was no significant domestic impact. Significant efforts were being taken and the mentalities were evolving. Topics which were usually discussed by middle aged women were now topics for discussion between high schoolers. We were inching towards a more equal society, and we knew that we had to be a part of this movement.