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.
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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.