Mi'kmaq resource centre helps women escape Sydney street life

Jeanette, an Indigenous woman from the Eskasoni First Nation, is leaving a life scarred by drug use and prostitution on the streets of Sydney, N.S.

She credits the Jane Paul Mi'kmaq Resource Centre with putting her on a healthier path, to a place where she feels she has "value [and] purpose in life."

The downtown centre, which opened 13 months ago, offers health care, counselling, food, clothing and a needle exchange program to women like the Eskasoni mother of five, who requested that she be referred to only as Jeanette.

The George Street location, which is open from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Friday, also provides her with a safe place to eat, and get warm clothing and footwear if she needs it.

Tough to beat addiction

In November, the facility previously known as the Mi'kmaq Womens Resource Centre changed its name to the Jane Paul Mi'kmaq Resource Centre.

The new name — in memory of a client who died from an overdose — recognizes how tough it can be to beat drug addiction.

Jeanette knows the obstacles well.

"I had nowhere to go," she said on CBC's Information Morning Cape Breton about her previous life. She was associating with people who "teach you how to do the drugs…. shooting up. Once you get into that, it is really a hard thing to give up just like that."

She turned to the sex trade to fund her addiction.

"Moneywise, you end up doing what you would not normally do."

'Able to pick myself up'

Jeanette has been on methadone for a year now.

"I am trying my best. A couple of times, I had a little fall. I was able to pick myself up right away," she said, crediting the centre with giving her the support she needs to stay clean and to minimize time spent as a sex worker.

"It's there. It's helping us."

At the beginning, the facility was scraping by with mostly volunteer workers and spotty funding.

But co-ordinator Heidi Marshall, who's also a volunteer, said more programs are now in place at the centre, including health care, pre-employment training and counselling through the province's Sexual Violence Strategy.

Transition House in Sydney is also putting on a 12-week sexualized violence support program, helping women discuss boundaries and providing support for victims, art therapy and goal setting.

More programs encourage regular attendance

The drug lifestyle can keep vulnerable women from accessing help, said Marshall.

Marshall, who is also a part-time professor of Indigenous studies at Cape Breton University, applied for funding for the pre-employment program. Now 10 women are attending regularly and accessing supports.

The training at the resource centre also has an academic component. Jeanette is enrolled in it. She is also taking training in sewing and craft-making.

Most importantly, though, she said, the facility gives her a positive place to go and avoid the pitfalls that could drag her back into street life such as visiting "so-called friends."

She said she's seen the number of women who go to the centre grow and encourages other native women to investigate what it has to offer.​

'Decent human beings'

Marshall said women struggling to get free from the cycle of abuse, addiction and street life are often judged very harshly, including in their own communities.

She said she herself was guilty of viewing the women in a very negative light.

"I've learned these women are decent human beings. I've learned it is good to give everyone a voice, not to judge. That could be your daughter or your granddaughter," she said.

"Poverty and drug addiction doesn't exclude anybody. You could have a good life, then you lose your children, you lose your house. What do you do? Where do you go?"