As a high school student who did not volunteer as much as would have liked to, I was eager to get involved at UBC. The TREK program was the first opportunity that I was made aware of through an email from my sociology teacher in the Summer before classes started. Reading the description, TREK seemed like a great opportunity to get to know the various communities and cultures in the city that I grew up in, which was a reason why I wanted to attend UBC in the first place. It all seemed to line up perfectly. Without hesitation I signed up, and now I have been given the chance to reflect on it; a look into the past.
There were good times, even better times, not so great times, but all were significant in the developing of knowledge regarding myself and my surroundings. I volunteered with Beauty Night Society, a non-profit organization which was founded in 2000 by a Vancouverite named Carolyn MacGillivray, who to this day is still very active in the organization. I had come across Beauty Night when I was in high school, searching the web for volunteer opportunities. I can honestly say that out of all the organizations I came across, this is the only one that resided with me, and that was because it was different. It stood out because its mission statement was unlike all the other ones I had read which is “[building] self esteem and [changing] lives of women and youth living in poverty through 3 streams of programming: wellness, life skills development and makeovers”. It caters to a need which is often neglected in todays society. Many non-profit organizations work to improve healthcare, overcome hunger, homelessness and more, which is great to find an abundance of these in the Vancouver area. However, what I discovered in my time volunteering is that Beauty Night takes the people (specifically women and children) who are subject to these hardships and grants them the opportunity to socialize and form relationships making its overarching goal to treat the social needs of these individuals as opposed to solely the physical. I found it interesting that this organization went full circle and ended up finding me through TREK.
I felt comfort seeing something familiar while attending university even though I was a while away from home. Also, being surrounded by a crowd who is similarly interested in getting involved on campus was comforting. Whenever there was a TREK workshop, the volunteers all stuck together and got along really well. These monthly meetings made me aware of the variety of community on campus and in the Vancouver area. Both getting to know the volunteers and also getting to know the Vancouver community through hearing about their experiences at their sites enabled me to learn in depth about the types of people on campus and in the community. I was aware that Vancouver and UBC has a very diverse population, but TREK enabled me to encounter these individuals on a more personal level. Some of the volunteers were international students and before attending university, I did not come across many. At Beauty Night, I met women who had faced problems such as physical and drug abuse. These are things I had only heard about on the news or through stories. I was only aware before, but after TREK, I became embedded in the diversity.
Entering the field, I had zero experience giving massages, foot scrubs, manicures and all things similar. A couple months into volunteering and I realize the true role which volunteers are meant to serve; which is accompaniment. These ladies do not have much contact with the outside world and Beauty Night gives them fresh faces to get to know. Almost every session I attended had a handful of woman eager to socialize and did not even bother getting any treatment done. At these points I realized the need of these women to be heard, thus enabling them to feel relevant, important, and overall cared for. All of these I, a single volunteer, was fulfilling only by being present in the conversations. These are conversations which lead to connections, leading to relationships, and inevitably leading to their mental wellbeing and overall fulfillment. These conversations are important to have, because they lead to emotional healing, healthy relationships and contentment.
Not only did my work at Beauty Night positively affect these women, but also did a service to my mental wellbeing as a student in university. Although I strongly and thoroughly enjoyed my first year at UBC, I felt like I often lost myself in the university lifestyle—being overly concerned with grades, resume building, thinking abut how to become the best student possible and about my future and how university would define it. This mindset consumes so many students (you can hear these conversations just walking around campus) and slowly I fell under the influence of it. It just seemed like university promoted this sameness among students, who all strived for similar things because of the environment that the university structure created. In sociology, Weber’s idea of the types of cages- the rubber one to be exact- reminded me of my experience between school and volunteering. The cage with rubber bars symbolizes the trap that is homogeneity and a life that is ordinary and repetitive, but can still be escaped through disengaging with societal structure. Beauty Night served as an escape from that part of university life. If anything, it kept me in check and reminded me to reflect on my motives for attending university, which was to gain new experiences and add to the adventure that is life. It reminded me that I was unique and me as an individual can invoke change by working toward a cause I care deeply about. As I attempted to reach the hearts of these women, their responses touched mine. I went to volunteer on my birthday because it fell on a Monday, which was the normal day I would go. I willingly went because I wanted to do something that would make me happy on this special day, and going to Beauty Night always put a smile on my face.
Through sociology class I have also learned about societal structure and its impacts on individuals; whether good, bad or neutral. This lens has helped me understand the reasons why these women end up in these group homes. There are specific reasons for their misfortune identified and defined in sociology. Structuralism is a central idea in sociology that claims society to be a defining factor of ones personal life. In terms of poverty, structuralism blames society for the misfortune of those experiencing it. In order for me to truly understand this concept, I would need to see it for myself. That is what Beauty Night enabled me to do. This dominant idea which was emphasized in class became a reality to me, and I can now say with confidence that the fault does not often lie with the individual. The women in Beauty Night mention their past often and how their parents were unable to be present or were too destructive to be around, and I can see the scars it has left—whether mental or emotional. The structure of society has kept many people among their own crowd and limited the opportunity for a change in lifestyle.
There is my past and society’s past. I was once just beginning my university experience with absolutely no idea where it would take me, but I knew that it would take me. That’s the difference between my past and the past of these women in the downtown east side, being how the system they grew up in is filled with large uncertainty. I aim to continue volunteering and unite my life with the lives of those who are treated by Beauty Night, so that we can dive forward together. Even though my past largely differs from most of theirs (being born into different circumstances) I hope to offer some sort of aid in declaring to be a part of their future. No matter how little or big the help is, it shouldn’t matter because outreach is something that just needs to be done without measure.