BMHC Womens Group: Portrait Day

Background:

The Women's Group is a drop in event that happens every Thursday except for the last Thursday of each month. The group is open to anybody that wants to attend but typically attracts women aged thirty five and up. According to one of the BMHC workers, the Women's Group is attended by women who have homes but live in poverty rather than those that live on the streets.

 

Each weekly meeting revolves around different  event or activities which are intended to keep the women engaged and interested. These activities include doing group yoga, visiting museums and art galleries in the city, having guest speakers come in, getting beauty treatments done at local beauty schools, and much more. In addition to doing activities, the women are also treated to a full hot dinner or packed lunch made by volunteers that come to the BMHC and cook.

Some of the beauty products Sephora was kind enough to give to the group

 

Portrait Day:

The other week I had the pleasure of attending a weekly Women's Group gathering at the BMHC.  The activity for that evening just happened to be their annual portrait day where two professional photographers come in and take portraits of the women for free. This is a special day where everyone is encouraged to dress up and give each other makeovers in preparation for their portraits. The photographs, which will be printed for free and given to the women will often be then given to family members as Christmas presents.

My role at the Women's Group was to help the ladies get ready for their pictures and help them apply their makeup. It was a really interesting experience and fun experience having a bunch of women wait in line for me to do their makeup. It was funny because several of them asked if I was a professional makeup artist (which I'm not). While I had fun playing around with the different color lipsticks and eye shadows, it was a bit nerve wracking because although I thought I did a good job on everybody I was nervous about them disliking their makeup. Thankfully nobody said anything bad and only had good things to say about it.



Ready for her snapshot (I didn't do her makeup)

 

My experience:

 

I have to admit, I felt really out of place and awkward during the Women's Group. Although I think I did a good job at hiding it, inside I had no idea what on earth I was suppose to be doing apart from helping the women with their makeup. The majority of women that attend the group are regulars and know each other so they are able to socialize between themselves. I expected Bavie as well as one or two other people from CSL to be there which would have made me feel more comfortable, but it turned out that I was the only one able to attend that night. I'm wasn't intimidated to be on my own, but I was a bit lost because I had not been given any prior instructions or guidance on what it was they wanted me to do for the duration of the evening.

 

The whole situation in fact reminded me of a classic high school cafeteria movie scene where you have different groups of people sitting at different tables chatting away while there is one "loner" (me) sitting at a table all by themselves. It was actually quite interesting. You had a group of seniors in their sixties and seventies talking amongst themselves, two Aboriginal women sitting together, a group of women in their forties grouped together, and two blond women with lots of makeup and who appeared to be desperately clinging on to their youth chatting away with one another. I don't mean to be rude or judgemental in making that last comment as they were really nice people, but if you saw them I'm sure you would understand where I was coming from. And finally there was me. Just to make myself clear I did not sit in the corner alone the whole time and stare off into space. I was able to engage with several of the women and had nice little chats. However, I often found myself sitting there observing the women and eavesdropping on their conversations quite a bit. I just wasn't able to shake the feeling of "OMG what are I suppose to be doing? I don't know! I feel so useless!"



Portrait time

I feel bad for portraying a rather negative experience of my time with the Women's Group? I didn't have a bad time, just an awkward one. I just don't really know how else to describe it. I found it a bit disappointing because I think I felt this way only because I had no idea what was expected of me that evening and it caused me to feel insecure.

Nice hot dinner to end the night

Meal Time

 



Coming into the Women's Group that evening I had no idea that they provided the women with a full healthy dinner. It was actually a really cool concept and I know that they women truly appreciated being able to come here for a weekly hot meal.

Meals are cooked by volunteers

Each week volunteers come in and cook different meals and dessert for the women. As you can see, tonight the women were treated to large servings of spaghetti and meatballs, salad, bread rolls, and berry flan for dessert. The importance of these weekly meals to the women struck me the most when I saw how many of the women brought containers with them to bring extra food home. For some reason it kind of saddened me that these women were so dependant on tonight's leftovers for their other meals. I don't mean to pity them, but perhaps I just lost sight of how much I take things such a food for granted.

Berry flan for dessert