{"id":7709,"date":"2013-10-02T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T16:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=7709"},"modified":"2013-10-01T10:07:08","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T17:07:08","slug":"camosun-womens-collective-helps-sex-workers-urges-students-to-pitch-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/10\/02\/camosun-womens-collective-helps-sex-workers-urges-students-to-pitch-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun women\u2019s collective helps sex workers, urges students to pitch in"},"content":{"rendered":"

From October 7 to 11, the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) women\u2019s collective will be collecting clothes for PEERS, a local non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering, educating, and supporting sex workers in Victoria.<\/p>\n

PEERS, which works with local sex workers to improve their working conditions and assist those who wish to leave the sex trade, has been forced to close their drop-in center due to recent complications with their funding. With winter coming, the street workers, many of who are homeless, are in desperate need of warm clothing, so the Camosun women\u2019s collective decided to step in and help.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do get some clothing donation from local organisations, but unfortunately most of the clothes they get are sizes, like, 10 and up. So they need clothing that will actually fit the people they are trying to support,\u201d says CCSS women\u2019s director Daphne Shaed. \u201cWe\u2019re looking specifically for sizes 0 to 8 women\u2019s.\u201d (Shaed also notes that because many of the workers don\u2019t have homes, any light camping gear would be especially appreciated.)<\/p>\n

Shaed says the idea to help collect clothing for PEERS was brought to her by Camosun student and women\u2019s collective member Sunny Burke, who is doing her practicum with the organization. Shaed says she immediately thought it was an excellent idea.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun student Daphne Shaed is helping PEERS by gathering clothes from students (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like PEERS is some big international charity and it\u2019s really important to support local organisations. They\u2019re a great organisation and we\u2019re really happy to do anything we can to help them out, especially in light of the drop-in centre closing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

PEERS is one of only two organizations in BC (the other being WISH located in Vancouver) that was established to advocate for and support sex workers. They serve over 500 individuals each year, 145 to 170 of which regularly accessed the drop-in center.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are unlikely to go to other services, either because they don\u2019t want the additional stigma or they don\u2019t qualify,\u201d says PEERS executive director Marion Little, whose staff struggles to maintain the existing services. \u201cOur street outreach programs continue to operate. Day outreach is operating based on funding from the United Way and individual donors, and night outreach operates based on funding from the health authority, individual donors, and BC gaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little says that even if there were 800 more people donating $10 to $20 a month, it would be enough to keep the street outreach programs running and to reopen the drop-in center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really encouraged to hear how many people recognise the precious lives of all of our community members,\u201d says Little. \u201cWinter is a hard time for the folks that PEERS serves and socks, and sweaters, and good quality coats and hats are really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little says she expresses her gratitude to the Camosun women\u2019s center, which has, on top of running the clothing drive, kindly agreed to sort and categorize all the items they receive so that the PEERS staff can dedicate what precious time they have to retaining their current programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a large student body of almost 10,000 people and we\u2019re hoping that if everybody pitches in we can raise a lot of resources for PEERS,\u201d says Shaed in anticipation of the campaign. \u201cThere\u2019s a variety of opportunities to donate to volunteer organisations out there that students can take, and PEERS is a valuable service in our community that\u2019s struggling right now and could really use our help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clothing items and camping gear can be dropped off at the student society offices at either of Camosun\u2019s campuses, located in the Fisher foyer at Lansdowne, or on the ground floor of Campus Centre at Interurban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From October 7 to 11, the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) women\u2019s collective will be collecting clothes for PEERS, a local non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering, educating, and supporting sex workers in Victoria. PEERS, which works with local sex workers to improve their working conditions and assist those who wish to leave the sex trade, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-october-2-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7712,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7709\/revisions\/7712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}