Three years ago someone referred me to East End Literacy because I could not fill out a form for an apartment and, in a matter of weeks, I had a volunteer tutor who came to my home.

In 1985, I had my second child; it seemed to work out fine because I worked with my tutor when my daughter slept, but I cannot do that anymore because she is older and more active. She needs daycare. My volunteer tutor is only available two hours a week. The only suitable daycare I can find will not accept my daughter for only two hours a week - the minimum time is five hours. I have to pay $100 a month out of my Family Benefits Allowance for this service. That is a lot of money out of my monthly income of $600. It's strange but if I were in a class for 25 hours a week, I could be subsidized for daycare. I have tried to get into a 25 hour/week program but I have been refused because I am not yet at a Grade 5 level.

I have just finished Adult Basic Literacy, Parts 1 and 2, a Ministry of Education correspondence course. It was necessary for me to work with my tutor to complete this.

I am happy with the progress I am making at East End Literacy and want to continue there until both of my children are in school all day, and then, by that time. I expect I will be ready and able to go into full-time education.

In the meantime, I wish there was more financial help toward daycare while I have my two hours of tutoring a week. There are a lot of women in the same position as me, who need daycare while they are working with their tutor.

Debbie was shaking as she stood up and presented her story to a room full of educated women. But she succeeded in raising an issue that had not occurred to very many people. Debbie doesn't need full time, government sponsored job training right now. But she does need to read with her kids, help them with their homework, and get to know the school system. Because of what we learned from Debbie and many women like her, East End Literacy is working to get recognition of literacy as a family issue. That recognition would include flexible, part-time childcare for parents who are learning to read and co-operative programs with our libraries and schools that help illiterate parents to help their children.

Meanwhile, back at the women's group, we had started to talk about sex. Rose told us one day that she had a lot of pain when she had intercourse, and we were trying to figure out where it came from. Rose believed that it was a result of her tubes having been "tied and burnt" years ago, but that didn't make sense to us. To back up our argument, we drew a picture on the blackboard, showing the location of the ovaries, tubes, uterus and vagina. Then we asked Carolyn Klopstock, a sex educator from the Department of Public Health, to come in and talk. Carolyn helped Rose to figure out that she had a bladder infection.

The picture we had drawn on the blackboard was of particular interest to Dorothy. She had just found out that she was three months pregnant She dictated this story:

It showed how the egg gets to the uterus. It showed how the sperm reaches the egg to make a baby. It was very good to know how this happens.

Through discussions like this, we realized that many of the women had not received basic information about their bodies when they were growing up. We tried, then, to focus the group on gaining this information, with help from Carolyn. There were problems, though. For women like Rose, Eleanor and Linda, knowing about their bodies did not repair the damage that had already been done to them as children or adolescents. Knowledge could not bring back their ability to have children. In a way it was too late for understanding, and so they lost interest. Perhaps the only thing that held the group together at this time was Dorothy. Dorothy's family had never pressure her about sterilization. She had not planned her pregnancy, but after a night of tears and soul searching, she decided to "face up to everybody and have her baby. The next day, she came to the women's group for support. Deciding to have a baby was a difficult choice for Dorothy, but it was her choice. For the group, Dorothy became the one who was going to break out of childhood.

Dorothy could not read, but she was hungry for information. Because there did not seem to be anything for adults in an easy-to-read format, the thought a making a resource book ourselves began to grow on us. After we finish My Name is Rose, we began work on the second manuscript, I Call it the Curse! a book about periods, conception and menopause.

Like Rose, Dorothy had a limited vocabulary with which to describe the dramatic things that were happening to her emotionally and physically. She told us again and again about her decision to keep the baby; how she "faced up" to her parents, who stood by her, and "faced up" to her boyfriend and his family, who denied responsibility. Five months into her pregnancy, her doctor told her to have an abortion "because she said I am a slow learner and the baby will probably be a slow learner, too." Carolyn helped her to find another doctor.