Graduating From Despair

"I came to Canada (from Jamaica) as a teenage single mother fleeing domestic abuse. That was my story -- my only story -- from which I could not escape. At Homeward Bound, I started to understand that my life was more than one story. Now I am an honours graduate from George Brown in early childhood education, a cake designer, an event planner and a working mother."
 Melicia Clark

She is not alone. There are countless women, young and younger, older as well, and just as likely to be a victim of spousal abuse, anxious to escape a life of misery and potential harm to come to their children through their abuser's anger. Not necessarily that it is only women who are exposed to marital or partner abuse but it is women overwhelmingly who make up the majority, and it is women, by and large, who are in danger of violent physical abuse.

Volunteer charitable groups proliferate in society, dedicated to the welfare of these desperate women and their fearful children. They are aided by being given a temporary home at refuges for single mothers, by the encouragement and support they find there, giving them some measure of confidence for the future, even when that future looks unbearably bleak. To know that there are people who care sometimes improves considerably the measure of their lives.

And then there is the opposite within society, people who have high profile and extremely well remunerated jobs. Salaries that soar into the financial stratosphere of outstanding success. Yes, there are some women who are included in such executive positions, but mostly they are men. And these men are capable of earning multiple millions in annual salary, often topped up by additional bonus funds in reflection of stockholders' appreciation of a CEO's outstanding performance.

One of these men is Ed Clark, chief executive of the TD Bank. This is a man who obviously gave quite a bit of thought to the condition of these lost single mothers. He provided personally $1.35-million in startup funding for an enterprise named Woodgreen Community Services. It was set up to provide housing, education, child care, academic upgrading, a two-year community course and a job placement for single mothers in desperate straits.

On a four-year committed course that provides for women living in shelters -- sheltering their identities behind false names, fearful for their future and that of their children -- single-mother graduates of the Woodgreen Services program become capable and reliable employees working in banks, law offices, high-tech firms or within Woodgreen's network of early learning centres. Earning salaries ranging from $35,000 to $55,000; their lives imbued with pride and purpose.

Recently on the 54th floor of the TD Tower, 22 single mothers took part in a graduation ceremony. They had all been recommended by various agencies as representing individuals who would benefit from the four-year program, Homeward Bound, an offshoot of the Woodgreen Community Service.
Since the inception of the Homeward Bound program nine years earlier 176 women with 216 children between them have lived on the campus.

The campus consists of a central nucleus; two apartment buildings, and child-care facilities. Of the 176 graduates, each and every one found a job.  The cost for graduating each student comes out to about $65,000. It is dependent on the generosity of corporate sponsors who provide jobs for the graduates and donors who agree to support the charity. It isn't an easy transition for the women; they must commit themselves to hard work to gain their diplomas and to graduate the program.

"It gave me security. It gave me a sense of community. Now I have the opportunity to set a new bar for my life", said one of the women who had arrived alone at a women's shelter, a pregnant teen with no idea how to take care of a baby or how she might survive on her own. Now she knows she can, and she knows how she can for she has been enabled to do so. She has a diploma from Seneca College in business management.