Involvement in the CCLOW research project

Diane Eastman is the literacy instructor working with groups. She has been at the Friendship Centre for six years and has become interested in the particular experiences that women bring to class. During CCLOW's outreach work for the second phase, the coordinating researcher contacted Manitoba's adult learning specialist responsible for professional development, Robin Millar. Robin mentioned Diane and her program because she thought that the program at the Centre, being both stable and creative, would serve as an excellent site for long-term research.

Once Diane reviewed the report from the first phase, she talked with Gail Lanoie, the assistant executive director of the Centre. Both Diane and Gail came to the first national workshop with the idea of developing a women's group through the literacy program.

The woman-positive activity

Diane spent two months talking with women in the program and exploring different ideas. It became clear that there was a common interest among many of the women around issues of abuse, particularly childhood sexual abuse. Diane began to prepare herself for working with women on this issue, checking out available agencies in the community and reading about different counselling approaches and resources.

After a brainstorm session early in 1992, the women indicated that they would like to work with childhood sexual abuse by rewriting materials used by local agencies which were not accessible to women with less than a high school education. Four to six women began meeting one morning a week. Because of their interest and the extraordinary academic progress made by members of the group, the meetings were expanded to twice a week and then to every morning.

Diane was interested in exploring how both individual women and the group as a whole responded to this woman-positive initiative. She looked at how the other students in her program responded, particularly the male students who have also experienced sexual abuse. Some men's involvement occurred because the open classroom setting gave them peripheral access to the group without infringing on the women's feeling of safety.

Working with Gail, Diane also investigated how other staff, different working groups, and the board at the Centre responded to the woman-positive activity.