Emmy

Emmy was 24 when she came to Canada from Holland on an exchange program for young farmers. With a degree in horticulture and a love of the outdoors, she was full of hope and anticipation. That hope was soon dashed when her physically abusive husband of two years, an alcoholic, threatened to kill her. Fearing for the life of herself and her young daughter, she left.

Her self-esteem was further compromised in a second marriage to an emotionally- abusive man, with whom she had a son. When he told her after five years of marriage, “I would like to see you dead,” she gathered up her two children and went camping, staying on after the weekend at the campsite. He had her arrested for kidnapping and to protect her children, she moved back home for another five years because “he told me if I took the kids without his permission, I would be in contempt of court.” Years later, she learned the court order was valid for only 30 days.

By the winter of 2005, CAS had been called in several times, once when her husband put their son outside in the snow with no shoes for laughing too much and again when he told the children he was going to kill their cat. Suffering from severe depression, Emmy was under the care of a psychiatrist, who recommended she leave her husband.

“I didn’t have the income,” Emmy, an interior landscape designer at the time, says. “But I learned from my doctor I was eligible for subsidized housing. So on February 28, 2005 I took the children to a women’s shelter and in March moved into my subsidized house.”

She remembers the day in court when she finally had a separation agreement: “After six hours, it was over,” she says. “All the threats. And I thought ‘Why did I stay so long?”

The women’s shelter referred her to the Women’s Centre in Aurora, funded by the Canadian Women’s Foundation, where she joined a program called Making Changes. There, she learned to empower herself.

“Now, when bad things happen I know how to turn them into a positive,” she says. “Making Changes was the best thing that ever happened to me. It helped me believe in myself.”

Accustomed to putting herself down in the isolation of an abusive relationship, Emmy recalls that “in the first session, we had to say something positive about ourselves. I had a hard time finding even one, but last November, when they asked for 50 positive things, I had no problem at all!”

She joined Enterprising Women when her employment advisor suggested she start her own business. An idea had presented itself to her in 2006 when her husband took the children on vacation and left with the threat “Just see if you get them back.”

“I was so worried, my psychiatrist told me to go on a canoe trip because sitting home and worrying would not help,” she says. Emmy had volunteered with Girl Guides for 22 years and participated in Outward Bound, both giving her the courage to go for it, even though she was the only woman on the nine-day trip.

“But I learned quickly that I had more experience than any of the men. I had organized the food the way it should be and they were so impressed, I ended up steering the canoe,” she laughs. “That gave me an idea. I can teach other women and help them gain confidence.”

She brought up the idea at Enterprising Women and soon had a website and financing from the Self Employment Benefit Program.

“My first trip was in February last year. I took people out on a winter camp. I had taken lots of trips with Girl Guides,” she says.

“But for this one, I got paid!”

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