Atlanta 3 - Intersectionality (5)

TGIT!

Today was our last day of service at the Women's Resource Center. In this environment, you can tell that the facilitators stress the importance of making everything feel as close to home as possible. To comply with that policy, we spent most of our time today playing with the kids, beautifying the space and prepping for spring! We did quite a bit of gardening in the back yard, finished up a paint job in the bathroom and cleaned/organized a shed full of donations for the kids. It seems as if the resource center gets a lot of support from the surrounding community. The kids seemed to love the attention and company from all of the volunteers as well. It's hard to focus and resist the cutest little girl you've ever seen handing you a flower that she's just hand picked! Their hearts are still so innocent and pure, yet seem to be very aware of their situation at such young ages. 

During the past couple of days at the resource center, there have been a couple of things that have stood out to us. For one, it never occurs to a lot of people that the women who seek help here are in hiding. They must go above and beyond to protect themselves and their children by staying in this space and never disclosing their location. They essentially have to cut themselves off from the outside world. For a lot of the children, these past few days have been the first time they have been allowed to play outside in weeks. The extraordinary measures taken to stay safe are mind blowing. While we served, we even had to remain conscious by not taking any photos of the facility, and making sure all location settings on our social media accounts were off. 

It is very important to remember that these women are still just that-- women. They are adults with identities other than victims of domestic violence. That is not their defining characteristic. The Women's Resource Center does a great job of trying to treat these women as equals and not serve as a babysitting service for them. They still have responsibilities on their own. It was super empowering to see the women interact with one another, uplift one another and even help out with each others kids. They never spoke words of negativity and you could tell that they were building up a really strong support system. Instead of tearing a woman down or shaming her for staying in an unhealthy situation for so long, it is more powerful to applaud her for finally gaining the courage to leave. 

-ATL3