Tuesday, August 01, 2006
A pink room
By Jenara Regis Newman
Think pink and one thinks soft, fragile, delicate, vulnerable, which is why pink is apt color for a facility that cares for battered, abused women and children. The Pink Room, now already a building, is the Women and Children Friendly Center (WCFC) of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.
It is a facility where abused women and children, victims of rape and other forms of physical, sexual or other violence, are housed for a day, before they are sent to other facilities for longer term care. Here they may be medically treated, fed, counseled, their need met immediately.
Zonta Clubs I and II of Cebu have made it a joint project, with Marilou Cañizares as project chairperson, to help the center in sourcing funds for sustenance, in networking, in assistance for trainings and advocacy. The group provides food, medicines and funds for emergencies, solicits or provides funds for furniture and equipment and advances the salaries of some of the center’s staff when needed.
When British Honorary Consul Moya Jackson told the group that there was a donation for the Pink Room, representatives of the club were present when the check was given to Dr. Filomena de los Santos, VSMMC chief of hospital.
The check for $5000, explains Consul Jackson, came from a Scottish lord, Irvine Laidlaw, who goes around the world in his yacht Lady Christine. When he was in Manila, he told Jill Beckingham, wife of Scottish Ambassador Peter Beckingham, that he usually leaves something behind in the places he visits. Without a second thought, Mrs. Beckingham told him about the Pink Room for she must have been impressed with what the center is doing when she visited it.
Think pink and one thinks of caring, caressing, the way VSMMC, Zonta I and II, Mrs. Beckingham and Lord Laidlaw have embraced the Pink Room and its mission into their hearts.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 1, 2006 issue)
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