Danielle Toppin, (MSc) is a trained gender specialist with over ten years experience in community work and youth development.   Currently, in her work with Sistren Theatre Collective, her focus is on both mainstreaming gender into the composition of the grassroots organization’s work; as well as on designing and facilitating workshops around issues such as gender, culture and identity.  

Danielle’s specific areas of interest are sexual and reproductive health, with a focus on teenage sexuality and identity.  In her work with Sistren, she engages with young males and females, both within the schools, and in the case of the young men, in corner reasoning sessions within inner-city communities in Kingston, Jamaica. At the recently concluded Caribbean Studies Association Annual Conference (May 2010, Barbados), Danielle co-presented a paper entitled, ‘Beyond the Mask: Exploring the Coping Mechanisms Employed by Women in Violent Communities’, looking at women’s experiences of community violence, and the ways in which they come to terms with, and manage the persistent violence. Danielle has also co-authored a paper entitled ‘Sistren in Parliament: Addressing Abortion and Women’s Rights through Popular Theatre’, which will be published in the upcoming Volume 12 of MaComère, the Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars.

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