This is what happened

The women in the morning group - called "CCLOW" - concentrated on rewriting a brochure from an organization called AMAC (Adults Molested As Children). They all went through a lot of emotional turmoil during this time. A lot of ghosts came back to haunt them and, when finished, they decided to take a break from the subject. The women chose to learn needlepoint as their next activity and during this time they seemed to be integrating the recently-gained academic and social skills. During the next year, the women plan to review the rewritten brochure and take it to AMAC to discuss its possible distribution.

It seems clear that this woman-positive initiative has provided an excellent opportunity for the women involved. There was growth, healing, and understanding coming from the common experience of being in the group. The women began working more closely together.

Diane strongly encourages peer tutoring in the program and she noticed the women spent more time helping each other and the other members of the class. During regular class time they were more willing to share their time and themselves with the other class members. Because of this increased helping attitude, the women also showed a stronger commitment to their school work. When the rest of the class witnessed this new commitment it encouraged many of them to work a little harder.

Diane believes that the last few months of school were more productive and creative than usual. At the same time as the CCLOW group was working, another group began some writing. The creativity and productivity of this second group may well be the result of these two groups working in the same classroom.

Many of the other participants in the program also kept a close eye - and ear - on the women's work. Those in the CCLOW group explained what they were doing and kept others informed of the progress they were making. As they worked on a flip chart, others in the program would often come over to read what had been done during the sessions. This often generated discussions among the students. They would mention to the women what they thought on the subject and some of what they said seemed to influence the women's thinking.

Also, while CCLOW was working in a group, the rest of the class was quieter than usual. It seemed that although they wanted to be able to hear the discussion, they also respected the women's work and wanted to give them the quiet required to think. The whole class saw the project as worthwhile. Some of the other women would have liked to join the group but couldn't, either because they were under a time pressure from a funding agency and felt they couldn't spare the time from regular academics, or because they were going through particularly chaotic times . their lives and could not continue in the program.