outreach ...

One night a week, the three of us load up the "mommy-mobile" (Trina's station wagon) with outreach supplies and head out in search of women on the street to connect with.  When we see a woman alone who may be a sex worker, we pull over and offer her supplies. 

Occasionally the woman we approach is not a sex worker and it can be a bit awkward (knowing that many women would be offended if they were mistaken for a prostitute) but so far we have not met with negativity of any kind from anyone we've approached.

While gathering the supplies for the women, we speak to them and let them know that we are "experiential" meaning that we've all worked in the sex industry.  We ask them how their night is and if they have any bad date reporting to do.  We also give them information on what services are available - we write organization names and phone numbers on the inside of matchbooks.

Since our outreach is relatively new, we are just beginning to take detailed "bad date" information which we will compile and print out to give to the women we connect with.  Bad date information can be about aggressive or violent "johns," about clients who don't pay, about clients who rob the women or drop them off in an unfamiliar location and don't drive them back - there are many ways in which a customer can be considered a "bad date."

One challenge for us in our outreach is that due to our limited supplies we've had to turn away some men who see us and approach us for food or other supplies.  Although our mission is to connect with and provide supplies for sex workers, we feel terrible turning away the men who also have a great need on the streets of Surrey.  We would like to get to a point where we can offer our supplies to both men and women while doing outreach to sex workers.

We usually drive around for 3-5 hours - the women who work in Surrey are very spread out and the area is vast, so walking is not realistic.  The women (and men) are starting to recognize the "mommy-mobile" and we are often greeted with great enthusiasm before even explaining our purpose.

Because we are finding it difficult sometimes to connect with many women doing street outreach, Surrey Gerlz is now partnering with the Front Room to start a drop-in one night a week.  Our street outreach will be limited to a brief drive before and after the drop-in, but may be extended in the future as our relationships with Surrey sex workers develop.

Our drop-in will also offer food, clothing, condoms - all the supplies offered in our street outreach.  It will also enable us to plan theme nights, such as self-defense training, beauty nights, and whatever the women who join us would like to see!

We hope that this brief description of what we do has helped you to understand why this work is so important.

The Naked Truth / Free Spirit Media / info@freespiritmedia.com