Attachment C: Suggestions from Research Participants re: the kinds of workshops and training experiences needed in the Downtown Eastside

Courses and workshops on:

• living with violence and self defence
• Coping skills – psychological ways of dealing with men as a means to avoid conflict If a guy is trying to be aggressive with you, and you play with him and say “oh baby”, maybe he’ll back the truck up and stop.
• a classroom,
• 2-3 hours on safe sex
• info sessions on education and housing
• computer skills
• upgrading classes
• More workshops and schooling
• More information sessions and workshops

Ways to promote the work of the WISH Learning Centre:

• More notices out in the other area about what is going on
• A calendar with a weekly agenda being posted, or a board with “What is going on” similar to LifeSkills.

Suggestions for UpWords Group

• A Website: This group could write awesome essays and articles on everyday life. e.g. how a Latino lives in the DTES – without being labelled as a drug dealer. If we get a website up, more of these stories can be told.
• It would be a good goal to work towards one issue and find common ground.
• Keep the group going!

General

You can provide information on other programs, the PEERs program was mentioned by Karen and how much it helped her (she found out about it at WISH).

Sugar Mama needs computer access because she wants to train to be a corrections officer.

Someone else mentioned a life coach.