Black Pioneers take message to Neptune

The play, performed earlier in Shelburne and Yarmouth, will also be showcased at Birchtown Community Centre 7 pm Oct. 24 as a centre fundraiser and the ultimate dress rehearsal for the cast of five.

Delisle, a Shelburne resident who is directing the play says she is just as happy about getting the play’s message out to more people as seeing it performed at the well-known Halifax venue.

“I’m always excited but I was no more excited about going to Neptune than I was about going to The Y’arc (Theatre in Yarmouth) or The Osprey (Arts Centre in Shelburne.) It’s about people getting to see this play and understanding some of the issues Black women have even nine or 10 miles outside of the city about issues related to their health and the health of their families.�

Dalhousie University approached Neptune about the play.

Delisle, along with another “facilitator,� Gail Jarvis are working on a university research project directed at health issues related to Black women living in rural and remote areas of much of Western Nova Scotia.

The project, which is in its fourth and final year, has included hundreds of interviews from “Liverpool to Annapolis� and west.

Using her scientific voice, Delisle says, “The play is a way to disseminate the information that was collected from that data.�

As a person with feelings, and “I am a Black woman,� Delisle says she couldn’t help but become “emotionally involved so I had to find an outlet for it.�

The author and playwright created a script that has “some very humourous moments and some very sad moments,� she says.

Some issues are no different than those experienced by other rural Nova Scotia. Transportation and men leaving home for work are two examples, she says.

Women are also losing their husbands to an aging population.

Cultural issues, or “the lack of culturally sensitive services,� however, are not often dealt with, she says, and “when you’re ill, you don’t feel like dealing with all that stuff.

“We don’t have a Black nurse in our community, for example. If there is one, I don’t know about her.�

Cultural issues can range from a nurse not realizing Black women need to put oil in their hair to feeling nervous about accessing what is perceived as a culturally-insensitive system.

“When you’re ill, it’s very important to have someone to identify with these issues, to deal with being a Black woman, �

In this area, she says Blacks are lucky to have patient navigator Donna Smith in cancer care.

She says her office, the Black Women’s Health Office in Roseway Hospital in Shelburne has been helpful in directing Black patients to where they need help.

She is hopeful a way will be found to keep the temporary office open in one form or another.

She says she realizes finding health care workers in general is difficult in these times but that this issue is also important and often overlooked.

In fact, she says, “It is an issue no one’s looked at.�