Imagine being homeless, penniless and friendless.
The Junior League of Baltimore is working on changing that situation through its Women?s Mentoring Program.
Roslyn Carlos had hit rock bottom a few years ago. “I had gone through some things. I was homeless. Maybe three months before, I had gotten evicted, I had lost my job,” she said. She was staying at the Christ Lutheran YWCA Women?s Shelter in Baltimore when she heard about the league?s women?s mentoring program.
The program works to prepare at-risk women for future independence through a focused job-readiness program that encompasses one-on-one relationships, class instruction and group application. There are two mentoring sessions a month, the first one on one with a personal mentor and the other in a group setting with a guest speaker.
The speakers cover topics aimed at helping women get back on their feet, such as honing interviewing skills, coping with change and budgeting. The program is run out of the Waverly Family Support Center.
“It?s helped my confidence a lot,” Carlos said. “And my mentor, she helped me take my first jewelry class.”
Carlos has been working as a production artist for a local jeweler in Owings Mills since 2004. “Jewelry was something I?ve always been interested in, I told [my mentor] that, and she helped me get a grant from JLB,” she said. After taking some instructional classes, Carlos felt confident enough to go after a job.
“Junior League of Baltimore started the mentoring program because women at risk were telling us that they needed help to get their GED?s and find jobs to afford safe housing and put food on the table, the bare essentials that most of us take for granted,” said Anne Johnson, president of the league.
“We often meet mentors at the beginning of the year who are skeptical about how we can help, but after a few sessions, they comment on how they never expected to find so much in common with their mentors and or to learn so much about themselves through our sessions,” Johnson said.
Carlos says that the support from the program helped her get to where she is today.
“If you don?t know what to do about a great many things, at least one person there will have an idea of how to help you, or where you can go for help,” she said.
Johnson says the feeling of hope goes both ways. “It?s not just a one-way street, our members who work as mentors say it?s the most rewarding volunteer work they have ever done,” she said.
