An Aboriginal Youth Drama performance is aiming to shed light on the importance of road safety.
The Toe Tag Crew – put on by SGI and the Gordon Tootoosis Nikaniwin Theatre – focuses on key road safety issues facing Saskatchewan teens.
The play profiles the lives of four young people looking back on how dangerous driving decisions resulted in dire consequences. The group held their first performance at Oskayak High School on Monday afternoon.
MLA Bronwyn Eyre was there on behalf of Minister responsible for SGI Don McMorris.
“I thought it was excellent and I thought these actors did a fine job and the writing was very powerful,” said Eyre.
The performance underlines a key issues in the province. According to SGI, 15 teens were killed and 748 were injured in vehicle crashes on Saskatchewan roads in 2014. SGI commissioned the performance to be written and performed by GTNT to reach high school students.
Aaron-Marie Nepoose plays nine different characters, all dealing with the loss of a loved one to a vehicle crash. She says she feels the audience responded well to Monday’s performance.
“I assume that they heard the message and they took something from it because it is about real life experiences and how it affects those around you, so I am pretty sure it gave them something to think about,” said Nepoose.
Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Felix Thomas was also on hand for the debut performance. He says the messengers may have been just as powerful as the message.
“When it is their peers spreading the message, that carries a lot more weight than a politician,” said Chief Thomas. “It was really great to see the students engaged and hopefully they get something out of it.”
The play will be performed at 22 different high schools across the province over the next month, reaching 5000 youth.