I recently found my name on the Vancouver Association for Survivors (VAST) of Torture Volunteer Wall. VAST was founded in 1986 by politically astute indivituals from around the world. I provided pro bono counselling therapy and assesment services for VAST for ten years. 

Volunteering for VAST was a pressure release valve for my public sector therapist job. My mentor, the late Garth Thomson MSW, is on the wall. So is Dr. Gabor Mate, who lived two blocks away and often commented as I wrote my PhD dissertation at the local Oak Street Starbucks: “are you writing the next best-seller book?” Dr. Vicki Reynolds, daughter of a fellow Newfoundlander; my beloved late cockney friend Frances MacQueen, Dr. Mashid Esfandiari, and many more. 

VAST was founded on the idea that people could offer their labor to help refugees from authoritian governments around the world. We accomplished this by volunteering our time. Therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers, administrators, coordinators, and many others diligently carried out the VAST mission. 

When one worked for VAST one mingled as part of the international human fabric: Musilims, Buddhists, Hindus, Latin Christians…those who suffer at the hands of the authoritarians who somehow seize power.  VAST, its volunteers, and those whom it serves, exists in practice on a level field.Those who help find humility. Those who are helped teach us humility, and teach us how to be strong in the Hero’s Journey of difficult circumstances,

To see the volunteer wall, please click on this link and scroll to the bottom of the page. 

https://www.vastbc.ca/aboutus