asked to go out to dinner downtown and to have a zoo
outing with their children, so that’s what we planned.
It took eight months, but I think it’s because they rarely
had people asking them before. It takes a while to get
comfortable articulating your needs and wants, and you
have to build trust first. I also noticed that the young
women did tell us what they wanted earlier on, just not
as directly as I expected. They told me all the time how
hard motherhood was, so we hosted a mothers’ support
group. When they showed an interest in the art class,
we had a mural painting inspired and painted by the
women.
Leah Landry, John Lee, Hector Avitia, and Lota Ofodile, August 2018
My time as a Precious Blood Volunteer has brought
my idealism down a few pegs. I came to pbmr with
my Peace Studies lessons on social justice and com-
munity change buzzing in my head. Working at pbmr
has forced me to put into action the values I had always
championed, and it made me question and refine them.
For example, Peace Studies taught me that all social
change should be led and directed by the people in the
community, that those closest to the problems have the
best solutions. So, when I was asked to start the Young
Women’s Group at pbmr, that was how I wanted the
group to be structured. The young women should tell us
what they wanted and be a part of the planning process.
However, this did not go as planned. First, the young
women did not even show up. We had multiple meet-
ings where only one person came. It took six months for
a consistent group of young women to start turning up,
but when