Inspiring Instructors, Part III: Elisa Hatton

Meet Elisa Hatton, a yoga teacher, community development worker, and artist. One of her most recent projects was coordinating and teaching yoga with an innovative yoga based HIV/AIDS prevention program for youth, called Mate Masie at The Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP), a non-profit organization in Toronto.

Please share with us the Mate Masie philosophy and the objectives and framework of this program.

Mate Masie is represented by an Adrinka symbol, which is a visual symbol originally created by the Akan people of Ghana and the Gyaman of Cote d’Ivoire that represents concepts or aphorisms. The implied meaning of the phrase Mate Masie is "What I Hear, I Keep" or “I understand.” Understanding means wisdom and knowledge, and also represents the importance of taking into consideration what another person has said. It also means placing a high value on self-reflection versus the stereotypes and myths that are perpetuated by our families, cultures, religion, media, and society at large.

Mate Masie is a community-based program created to provide HIV/AIDS & STI  prevention education to African, Caribbean, and Black youth, aged 15-26 in Toronto. Black CAP’s mission is to reduce the spread of HIV infection within Toronto’s Black communities and enhance the quality of life of people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. During the delivery of Mate Masie, Black, African, and Caribbean people accounted for more than one-fifth of all new HIV infections in Toronto even though we had made up only one-tenth of new HIV infections in the early nineties. Mate Masie was developed to inspire critical thought, holistic self-reflection, and a safe space for youth participants to unpack some of the baggage surrounding HIV and to get to a place of empowerment about their sexual health and the health of the Black community. A passionate team of four yoga instructors, two kwanzaa instructors, four youth peer leaders, twenty community partners, and a handful of mentors were selected to provide Mate Masie throughout Toronto in priority and underserved communities.

How is HIV/AIDS & STI prevention education partnered with yoga?

Well, Mate Masie was actually a really neat combination of yoga, kwanzaa, and sexual health education. Here’s how it worked:

1. A weekly 3 hour session delivered over 7 weeks that consisted of a Kwanzaa-based Life Skills Workshop, a yoga session, hot food, guest speakers, and discussion. 
2. After completing the 7 week program, youth participants from multiple locations attended a weekend yoga and wellness retreat where they were doted upon by program staff and supported to deepen their yoga practice, to further explore prevention education through theatre, sports, and just kicking back, relaxing and having fun without the everyday worries of navigating life in the big city. 
3. After the yoga retreat, youth participants from all sites came together again for a special graduation ceremony where their leadership was honoured and celebrated with speeches from community leaders, entertainment and dancing, a Certificate of Accomplishment, as well as their own yoga mat, sexual health resources (made by and for Black youth), and wellness certificates to a variety of organizations such as spas, gyms, and yoga studios. 

Participants really loved it, and they included youth living with HIV, LGBT youth, and straight youth from within Toronto’s diverse Black community. It ran in over ten communities in Toronto and during this time became a youth-led initiative under Elisa’s mentorship, led by Mary Yehdego, one of the project’s original Youth Peer Leaders.
What benefits have the youth experienced through this program?

Mate Masie was successful in engaging youth in candidly exploring the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS & STIs, how these issues impacted their own choices, and the roles that they can play in reducing transmission rates, stigma, and stereotypes. It was also successful in engaging community leaders, partner organizations, and instructors from the broader Black community, and it really had a positive impact on the community at large. It opened doors that were previously closed to exploring the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS, STIs and sexual health within the Black youth community, like HIV-related stigma and discrimination, homophobia, anti-Black racism, sexuality, culture, and religion. There are so many negative stereotypes about HIV/AIDS within and about the Black community and Mate Masie offered a holistic framework for exploring and understanding how our perceptions of HIV/AIDS in the Black community is directly impacted by the messages we are taught about ourselves by our families, our cultures, the media, and society at large. I believe that its success was a result of its holistic framework, the curiosity and willingness to explore what all players brought to the project, and the affirmation of our value as a community across culture, sexual orientation, gender, age, and HIV status. It’s just easier to talk about ‘taboo’ issues when the right environment is created and supported. The Kwanzaa sessions really inspired a sense of pride and roots. The yoga sessions inspired a sense of empowerment and freedom. Once youth started to feel safe enough within themselves and with workshop leaders to relax, the conversations came naturally. The questions, the fears, the anger, the tears, and the knowledge just flowed.

Is this program currently available? If not, how can the community contribute to its revival?

Over 300 youth completed Mate Masie and the project is still in high demand as an innovative, holistic, and community-based approach to HIV/AIDS prevention programming for youth by both youth and community partners throughout Toronto. Mate Masie was generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Youth Challenge Fund, and Community One Foundation. The project is currently suspended due to lack of funding and Black CAP is seeking funding to start the program again. 

Elisa is currently the Program Director at The Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention. She also facilitates and teaches yoga, transformational dance and art-based healing workshops to diverse communities in Toronto. You may reach her at elisa [dot] hatton [at] yahoo [dot] ca.

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