Our cities are full of women who, like Rose, have lost their sense of dignity. Due to a whirlwind of circumstances these women have found themselves alone in the dark in the middle of the night with nowhere to go. After living this way for awhile -- wandering the streets, sleeping sometimes in crowded shelters and other times in abandoned buildings, feeling none of the luxuries of life but all of the burdens -- many of them begin to see themselves as unworthy of things most of us consider essential to life.
In the Fall of 2007 a group of women came together in Kansas City, MO with a common concern for the broken women who walk our streets. Out of our meetings was birthed a ministry called Emancipation Station.
In our city there are a number of women's shelters that offer a place to sleep, but most of these require the women to leave during the day. Emancipation Station offers a safe place for these women to come to receive support, education, counseling, recreation, and rest. We exist to remind women that they are beautiful, that they are valuable, and that with the help of others they can rise above the situation they are in.
Weekly activities and classes at Emancipation Station include Self Esteem Building, Bible Study, Creative Writing, and Anger Management, Grief and Loss Issue Group. We have teamed up with a local library that reserves computers on certain days for the women to use to look for jobs and build resumes. Women also come together daily to work together to prepare lunch.
While we as leaders, organizers and teachers, have sought to help these women, what we have seen even more significantly is that in the healthy environment Emancipation Station provides, the women begin to help one another. The encouragement, friendship, and support that is built within our walls gives women the the strength to move forward -- returning to school, working on a job, staying out of dangerous relationships.
Women without homes and other impoverished women often become slaves to a lifestyle of desperate survival. It is these women who Emancipation Station seeks to help as well as those that desire a sense of community. Together we are women working our way toward freedom.
We have dreams about the way Emancipation Station will help women in the future, dreams we can't accomplish without help from others who care about the broken women of our cities. Our needs include transportation services, staff, volunteers and supplies. Just $10 could provide bus passes for 5 women to spend a day at Emancipation Station or get and from a job interview. Toiletries such as lotion, shampoo, deodorant, and makeup can make a world of difference to a woman who is slowly regaining dignity and self-worth.
....Jennifer Chapman
For more information on how you can help, please contact Alice Piggee-Wallack, Deanna Hayden or Patty Jablowski at 816-561-1700.
