Just a helping hand

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EDMONTON - An idea that formed three years ago is slowly getting off of the ground. The Guardian Angel program focuses on training women to be advocates and mediators for women who are experiencing personal, financial or family difficulties.

The Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women (IAAW) is currently seeking funds to help start up the program that will use traditional knowledge and cultural training to help women overcome their difficulties.

"When there are problems in the home, the house is often a mess, the kids are not looked after, the kids are crying. We women, as a group, talked about it and said, 'somebody's got to do the cleaning up, fix supper and get the kids fed and so on, and someone's got to talk to the woman,'" said Muriel Stanley Venne, president of IAAW. "Not a social worker, no power struggles. Guardian Angel does not have the power to take away your kids, or to authorize anything. They are just there to help - non-judgmental - not judging who is good or bad or whatever, just a person who has no interest either way except to help the woman. A person who is skilled in advocacy, one who would mediate in the home, or just to calm the situation," she said.

Stanley Venne said the idea came from her own experiences and those of others.

"I had a guardian angel. I was left for dead in a back alley. It was my neighbor that demanded that something be done. She was the one that got the police to listen," said Stanley Venne. "I always tell it like this. When you are in trouble like that, it seems like it's the woman who comes out looking bad."

Stanley Venne believes that sometimes all that the family needs is someone to listen, someone they could call up just to talk, someone who would have the time to listen before things got out of hand; someone in the guardian angel program.