Starting PEERS Vancouver was terribly challenging and to be honest, if I knew how hard it would be I likely would have folded.
In 2001 I was just 22 years old and freshly out of the trade. I had just received a full-time job at PEERS Victoria as the Director of Public Education, thanks to the unstoppable mentorship of Audra Tellifer and was just getting comfortable ...when Audra had her bright idea!
Audra and I had come to Vancouver for a workshop and while waiting for the ferry to take us home she looked at me and said “you should start PEERS in Vancouver, Amanda, you could totally do it”. Audra is like that, she sees far more in a person than they will ever see in themselves and she won’t accept your watered down version either. Just as we were about to load the boat I ran to the pay phone and called Barb Smith one of the original founders of PEERS Victoria and asked her what she thought. She thought it was a great idea!
By the time we got home there was already a buzz and Shelley Woodman had agreed to come on board. As my exiting counselor I knew her skills first hand and was thrilled at the offer. Barb, a tremendous force in this movement, was really responsible for a lot of the start-up of PEERS Vancouver, she mentored us on proposal writing, non-profit registration, introduced us to funders and eventually set us free to go begging in the streets of Vancouver for funding!
It was a long road with a lot of set backs. At one point I was back at the food bank line up with my daughter after being rejected for another proposal, I don’t know how we made it through, we just kept believing I guess. In my quiet moments I would remember not so long ago…when I needed PEERS and think of the men and women I'd worked with who desperately needed this too. PEERS is a gift and it’s passed from one sex worker to another, PEERS Vancouver would happen, I knew it in my heart.
The first funding we received was for RISE a 6 week employment assistance service similar to the one I’d taken in Victoria only a year previous. When we got the funding there was no time to waste we bought desks and tables, assembled chairs till the wee hours of the morning (I didn’t know they don’t come assembled!) thanks to the help of Colin Doylend and quickly assembled an all star team of former sex workers and supporters to facilitate the first ever RISE in Vancouver. I am still best friends with our first client who of course, later became a board member.
Later I would write the Elements Proposal, a first stage exiting program and my first crack at program development. I facilitated the first few cycles and cherish the tears and laughter of those men and women many of whom I am still in contact.
PEERS Vancouver was an exhausting miracle that I’ll always be proud of and for whom my heart will always swell. Over the years the most generous souls have swept its roster and the team at its helm now is young and vibrant with new ideas and new stories of their own. Its an honor to be remembered as a founder and a gift to have been a benefactor of PEERS Victoria.
