The Women’s Resource Center, located in the UC Satellite serves an average of 300 people a week, including anyone in the UH community regardless of gender.’
‘ ‘This is a place where people can come and have someone listen to them,’ Women’s Resource Center Director Beverly McPhail said. ‘People’s confidentiality is most important to us; there are no files with names, numbers or anything like that.”
The center’s goal is to provide a comfortable facility, where staff, faculty and students can seek out information on topics from sex education and sexual identity to race or abuse.’
Visitors can also obtain a confidential referral to an appropriate campus community resource. ‘
‘We don’t really do repeat counseling, because that is more for the CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) facility,’ McPhail said.’
‘But we’re here to listen, and hopefully point students in the right direction for help; sometimes that’s all they need.”
This facility is a life vest for some, McPhail said.’
‘We deal with domestic violence, women who are pregnant and scared, abuse victims, people who just need some directions in life,’ McPhail said. ‘We don’t let them drown.”
The center provides an array of services.
‘We supply women’s products, condoms, advice – we are also just a quiet area for students to come and sit, or even just use the computers,’ secretary Gloria Smith said.
The volunteer program is unique in that it has waiting list, and an average of 22 students per semester commit to one hour per week to volunteer for the center, Smith said.’
The center also serves the male community.
‘Men are welcome here too,’ McPhail said. ‘Actually one third of all our students who come in are men. They usually come for condoms and pamphlets on sex education.’ ‘
Psychology senior Christine Catalla said she enjoys the Women’s Resource Center events that are designed to be educational and fun. ‘
‘ One of the center’s programs, Movie Madness, held every Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., screens films such as Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, in which documentarian Byron Hurt shows how hip hop deals with gender issues, masculinity and domestic violence.
‘Movies like that open the eyes of the society,’ Catalla said. ‘I believe in this program and decided to get involved passionately with something I see as truly important.”
McPhail said that the Women’s Resource Center is not widely publicized.
‘We do go to many of the student events, like student orientation and have a stand, and we are in the process of relocating to the UC where the Cougar One office is now,’ McPhail said.
Many of those who work at the center are glad that they do.’
‘ ‘It’s very fulfilling, being able to help others,’ Smith said, ‘People, through our programs, are able to enrich themselves.”
