Being jolted awake by the sound of a newborn cry was only starting to become familiar to ‘Camilla.’
Her baby boy was only five weeks old, and her life was unrecognizable to her. She was dragged through each day by maternal instincts, caffeine, and the adrenaline that coursed through her at the sounds of her son’s cries. Camilla did not feel safe.
The home she lived in was frequented by people whom she did not know or trust. Food was hard to come by and healthy food was non-existent. Her home abounded with sounds of chaos – a chaos that she did not want to raise her child in.
Finding out she was pregnant seemed to collide with a domino-effect of terrible events. She lost her job, unable to stay on her feet for long hours at the salon, the man whom she was seeing moved to a different town and wanted nothing to do with her or the baby, and, worst of all, she was forced to move back in with her mother.
Her mother had become addicted to drugs when Camilla was only nine years old, a coping mechanism after suddenly losing her husband in a car accident. After years of vacant stares and habits that seemed were never going away, Camilla realized she had lost both of her parents.
As she pulled herself out of bed to check on the baby, something unsettled her. A noise in the kitchen. She was accustomed to unfamiliar noises in this house, but something about this was different. Someone was angry. Her heart started to pound.
The next 20 minutes were a blur. There was yelling and punching, running and falling, sirens and newborn cries. When she finally felt a gentle touch, she opened her eyes. A nurse was asking her to loosen her grip on her baby. She tasted blood in her mouth and saw more on her clothes. She shut her eyes and held her baby boy even tighter.
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Camilla was connected with one of our nonprofit partners and brought to a safe house for women. She stayed there with her son until he was six months old. They helped her find a job in a new city, get a decently priced car and find a good pediatrician that was accepted by her new insurance. They introduced her to a church leader in her community who invited Camilla for dinner at his home. He and his wife continued to host Camilla and her son for dinner once a month and she began to feel she really had made a new start. She made friends with another single mother in that church and they became very close, as did their sons, now almost two years old.
What does Camilla’s story have to do with Life on Belay?
It’s something that you can’t immediately see.
Before Camilla was removed from that house by police, before she moved into it, even before she became pregnant, Life on Belay worked with the nonprofit that took care of her during that difficult time.
We redesigned their program to meet more than one need of the mother. Through our analysis, we found that most women with backgrounds similar to Camilla’s go right back to cycles of poverty and violence after leaving the safe house, having nowhere else to go. We connected the Safe House with other non-profits that addressed her other critical needs: affordable housing, safe transportation, medical care, job security. Within this system of care Camilla was able to rebuild her life. The most important connection we set up was the one within a church family.
Friendship was the transformative factor that kept Camilla in stability.
We ask you to consider giving a gift today that will fundamentally change the capacity that nonprofits have to care for families like Camilla’s. She found our nonprofit partner because of an ad that we placed for them and her life was transformed by the system of care she encountered. We are so honored to be part of her story. We cannot do this work without your help.
Together we are building systems of care for families in crisis.
