Volunteers Needed - Drop-In Program for Women in North Philly!

A year ago, the Community Center at Visitation (CCV) established a Drop-In Program for women actively engaged in prostitution in the Kensington Neighborhood of Philadelphia. The Drop-In Program provides an opportunity to reach out to, connect, and build relationships with women in this vulnerable situation of prostitution, poverty, and, usually, homelessness in order to invite each woman to look toward a next positive. The program is a front-line service, enabling women to address immediate needs while offering them connections to other services. The Drop-In is open Thursday and Friday evenings from 9:30pm-12:00am. As its second year begins, the center is committed to strengthening and expanding the program, particularly in adding Street Outreach on Thursday and Friday evenings around 6:00pm.

The Drop-In Program is foremost a venue where women, who are typically socially isolated, are welcomed into a judgment free community. From the Program, women have been placed in hospitals, shelters, and with families or friends. Women are able to receive a healthy meal and a warm greeting two nights per week. Women currently prostituting are on the periphery of society and work in a neighborhood that is, itself, an outcast from the rest of Philadelphia. In the sharing of food and stories in the center’s kitchen women know they belong and are heard, this societal belonging will bear an impact on women who are everyday isolated and used. The impact of the Drop-In is also on those who choose to serve. It is an opportunity, as one volunteer shared, to “be present with another in her humanity.”

The Drop-In Program is staffed primarily by committed volunteers and Social Work Interns and its basic supplies (a meal, hygiene products, and coats) are donated by other volunteers and center partners. We would like to invite you and your organization to take part in this developing and essential ministry. We provide training and policies meant to increase the safety of the women and the Program’s Volunteers. Please consider committing yourself to one night per month for either the Drop-In or Street Outreach and know that I am happy to meet with you to answer any questions. We look forward to working with you in this important endeavor.

Please contact me with any questions: kowens@visitationbvm.com or 215-426-9422 ext. 34203.

Blessings,

Sr. Karen Owens SSJ

Director

Community Center at Visitation

Project SAFE Volunteers Needed

Hey Ladies, do you care about women's sexual health? Then Project SAFE needs your help!

 

Project SAFE, an all volunteer public health organization for women participating in street based sex work in Philadelphia, is looking for new volunteers to help distribute safer sex and harm reduction supplies on the streets of Kensington.  This is a great way to help women stay safe and really make a difference.  For more information, please visit our website at www.safephila.org or email us at safe.phila@gmail.com. 

 

If you are not able to volunteer but would like to help out, donations are much appreciated. Click here to donate now!  Thank you for your support!

Feminist Government Bans the Exposure of Nordic Nipples!

Johanna Sigurdardottir, Iceland's prime minister and the world's first openly lesbian head of state, has led the government, along with backing from its strong female parlimentary officials and large number of women's movement participants, to close down Iceland's sex industry. 

As the Guardian reported in the article "Iceland: the world's most feminist country," what is even more impressive [than just banning sex work is that] the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons. Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold." When I asked her if she thinks Iceland has become the greatest feminist country in the world, she replied: "It is certainly up there. Mainly as a result of the feminist groups putting pressure on parliamentarians. These women work 24 hours a day, seven days a week with their campaigns and it eventually filters down to all of society.  Guðrún Jónsdóttir, a participant in the anti-sexual violence campaign, was quoted as saying that she is confident that the law will create a change in attitudes towards women. 'I guess the men of Iceland will just have to get used to the idea that women are not for sale.'   

Is this, however, really a feminist decision?  There is at least one other school of feminists, particulary liberal feminists who would object to such a ban.  Grassroot groups such as COYOTE (call off your old tired ethics) were founded for all sex workers to support the rights of sex workers in their work, and to promote, among other things, sex education for the workers, their clients, and the general public. Here in Philadelphia we are fortunate to have Project Safe, an organization also dedicated to the advocacy and empowerment for the basic human rights of women working in the sex work industry.  Again, women find themselves in the middle of centuries-long debate! Take a look at this snippet of video of a debate in action.  

Speaking Her Voice - Sunitha Krishnan on Sex Slavery

Sunitha Krishnan has dedicated her life to rescuing women and children from sex slavery, a multimilion-dollar global market. In this courageous talk, she tells three powerful stories, as well as her own, and calls for a more humane approach to helping these young victims rebuild their lives.

Each year, some two million women and children, many younger than 10 years old, are bought and sold around the globe. Impassioned by the silence surrounding the sex-trafficking epidemic, Sunitha Krishnan co-founded Prajwala, or "eternal flame," a group in Hyderabad that rescues women from brothels and educates their children to prevent second-generation prostitution. Prajwala runs 17 schools throughout Hyderabad for 5,000 children and has rescued more than 2,500 women from prostitution, 1,500 of whom Krishnan personally liberated. At its Asha Niketan center, Prajwala helps young victims prepare for a self-sufficient future.

Krishnan has sparked India's anti-trafficking movement by coordinating government, corporations and NGOs. She forged NGO-corporate partnerships with companies like Amul India, Taj Group of Hotels and Heritage Hospitals to find jobs for rehabilitated women. In collaboration with UN agencies and other NGOs, she established printing and furniture shops that have rehabilitated some 300 survivors. Krishnan works closely with the government to define anti-trafficking policy, and her recommendations for rehabilitating sex victims have been passed into state legislation.

"The sense that thousands and millions of children and young people are being sexually violated and that there’s this huge silence about it around me angers me." - Sunitha Krishnan (source - ted.com)

Cracked Not Broken - A Must See!

Take some time to watch, think and share! This is a simple yet powerful documentary of a woman struggling with addiction and trying to be true to herself.

Please visit the filmaker Paul Perrier's site www.crackednotbroken.com.