LEARNING FROM WHAT DOESN’T WORK

It’s not always easy to describe Project Empower to folks but one way might be that Project Empower learns from what doesn’t work to find a way to for something to work.

For an example: The conventional way of addressing poverty is through education, job training and employment services. Women in poverty, through these services, are usually ushered into jobs in food service, child care, hospitality (hotels and hospitals), and certified nursing assistant, regardless of their natural gifts, abilities and interests. These jobs “will do” even if a woman will rarely make enough to support a family and many times does not have benefits.

I’m playing with the idea of micro-businesses. A woman whose year clean anniversary date is this month, told me how hard it is to find a job. “Who will hire me? I’m on probation for petit larceny?” Another who relapsed has incredible job skills in a number of fields but faces the same dilemma. But when I talked with a consultant in economic development said building women’s micro-businesses would never work. It’s been tried and done, and mostly failed. The message was clear: these women will never be responsible or strong enough to run a business. They make good employees, not employers.

That’s where we come in. Now the micro-businesses are (probably) a fer piece down the road. But Project Empower addresses the very issues of why women do not succeed in leaving poverty behind, why women are not successful in their jobs, and why women may never have the skills to rise above a more or less menial or low-paying position.

Our four foci—healing, community, learning, and training address the underlying issues of trauma, fear, lack of self-confidence and control and isolation. We look to see why things don’t succeed and then instead of saying it can’t be done, we find the way to do it. I’m sure we’ll never bat 1000%, but in baseball, even .350% is pretty darn good. And our batting average is already high!

I had already chosen this title before the above conversation took place. It strikes me that newsletters from non-profits always share the good news (or put a positive spin on things so they sound good), and then one finds out what is really going on behind the scenes. We want to be different than that—so we hope to report it all—partly so you can believe that what we do is really real. And it is often from what doesn’t work that we learn the most.

Take Cameron, for instance. We’ve shared Cynthia’s story which is truly a success, but to be honest, the women have not come to us in droves. Does it mean that we have failed? I think it means we haven’t found the right formula yet. We haven’t had a consistent group at Cameron for about 6 months or more. But we have been a consistent presence. We’ve helped cook lunch and clean and now we are enthusiastically greeted when we enter the lunch room. We are earning the confidence of both staff and clients. We help with social work needs (thanks Mary Kay & Jess!!), we’ve helped people get needed documents to continue education, we’ve given rides, helped with legal issues, but especially we have been there—and we’ve listened, given and received hugs and provided shoulders for tears. Next week we’ll be a presence at a murder trial with a victim’s mother, we’ll provide job references—and we’ll start a new group—because now they are asking for it.

I grew up in a family where if we were told something was impossible, we’d double our efforts to find a way to do it. Our numbers are increasing and so is our determination. Our new motto is Changing the World, One Woman at Time. And we do that by transforming the energy within, between, and around. The exciting thing is that it is working. So look out world, here we come!

And our growing pains!!
· Need to refigure our board that reflects a growing organization
· Need to stop thinking small and start thinking big
· Need to shift our thinking to insure that Life Listening Resources is effective and strong
· Need to do serious fundraising to support our programs
· Need for a full-time administrative assistant or Operations Manager
· Need to learn how to manage overwhelming growth
· Need for more hours in the day
· Need for volunteers for our upcoming Cabaret

There’s a few things so you don’t think we are trying to pretend to have it all together.