WOKE
IWES' first narrative feature film explores what it means to be in a healthy relationship and revolves around two college students that are in love yet at a crossroads and facing differing ideas about their future. The film deals with the topic of mental wellness and the impact of trauma on the growth and well-being of a young person. Sparked by events in New Orleans and abroad, Woke also reflects socio-political issues in the popular discourse for young people, specifically the topics of race, gender and power as it affects African American youth. Based upon actual events in the past few years, the series deals with race-based incidents and realities, such as the impact of confederate monuments, buildings and flags named after and representing bigotry.
At the 2017 New Orleans Film Festival, Woke won the Special Jury Award in the Louisiana Feature category. Follow this link to read more about the award.
To watch the trailer, Follow This Link.
To watch the full film, follow this link.
The Curriculum
Woke was created as an edutainment tool to spark conversations about gender and sexuality in a comprehensive and safe way. The film has been broken up into four chapters and paired with our IWES-developed Creating A Future Together (CrAFT) curriculum. The curriculum is a comprehensive, trauma-informed, and gender-transformative sex education curriculum for youth in middle and high school, rooted in a human rights framework. CrAFT emphasizes higher-order learning, multiple pedagogical approaches, and personalization of material to reach students with diverse learning styles and needs. In New Orleans, where CrAFT was developed and piloted, the impact of individual- and community-level trauma on youth health decision-making is undeniable. Therefore CrAFT was created with modules particularly focused on social and emotional health that are based around Woke to augment the traditional sex education framework and meet students where they are.
If you are interested in learning more about the CrAFT curriculum, as well as options for purchase, please contact Iman Shervington.
