Sunday, August 30, 2009

Perspective.

The other day I needed to find a postal code for the SARA Society. They deal with survivors of childhood sexual assualt (SARA stands for Sexual Assault Recovery Anonymous).

See, when I was working with a non-profit group that deals with homelessness, I learnt a lot about other societies and why we need them. There are dozens of crisis lines, for all sorts of reasons, shelters, emergency centres, help lines for families, women, men or children, people with diseases, people that are borderline homeless, people that are homeless, people with mental or physical disabilities... People that need help.

Along with their address and phone number, the SARA Society also had a little blurb about contacting them. If you leave a message with them, you have to say if it's safe for them to leave a message when they call you back.

Not if it's okay, but if it's safe.

And then, if it's not safe, there' s a code.

My mind? Blown.

They have codes. They need codes. There's a need for codes out there! It's one thing to be sneaky planning a surprise party, but to have your safety depend on it? I don't know if I could do that.

I guess it just makes a failed piano exam seem sorta insignificant.

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