YWCA Bursary Program: Giving Stability to Families
When Carla Newton was pregnant, a dream of becoming a labour and delivery nurse took root inside her. But soon after giving birth to her son, her focus shifted to something else: survival. Carla was living with a violent partner and, while she was holding her five-week-old son, he assaulted her.
“It was dangerous for both of us, and we had to leave,” Carla said.
After feeling isolated in her own community, Carla approached a YWCA Single Mothers’ Support Group, hoping for connection.
“It was the most fantastic, amazing, courageous group of women,” she said, adding she felt understood, and not judged. “It changed my view of what single motherhood could look like.”
Carla told her new community about her dream of becoming a nurse, even though she’d given up on it herself.
“I talked myself out of even trying,” she said. “I had really low self-esteem.”
YWCA staff and the other moms in the support group saw Carla’s potential and helped her take the first steps to pursuing that goal, including telling her about the YWCA Bursary Program.
“It was a game changer for me,” Carla said. She took daytime and evening classes and, with ongoing support from her community, she got into nursing school on Vancouver Island.
Now a nurse in Vancouver, Carla’s journey with the YWCA Bursary Program has come full circle: she’s on the scholarship committee herself.
“Some of these women have been lied to about their capability or their self-worth ... and it’s just not true,” she said. “These applications that come through are just incredible, smart, caring, compassionate, wonderful mothers.”
For Carla, the ripple effect of receiving a YWCA bursary has meant security and hope for her family. Carla said she’s seen those impacts on other scholarship recipients too.
“You’re out of survival mode and you’re into thriving mode,” she said. “It’s so much more than paying tuition for someone. It’s giving stability to families. It’s giving stability to children.”
For information on how to donate to YWCA Single Mothers’ Support Groups, please contact Vanessa Wellington-Clark at vwellington@ywcavan.org or 604 985 5826 or visit ywcavan.org/programs/support-single-moms
