Up With Women employs coaching to lift at-risk women out of poverty

When Veryl Obodi arrived in Canada from Kenya as a refugee in June 2019 with no money and no family to rely on, she believed her education and experience would help her get a good job. Instead, she ended up living at the YWCA homeless shelter in Toronto and working as a cleaner.

Obodi was shocked to learn that her undergraduate degree in Tourism, a master’s in Natural Resources Management and 10 years of experience in project management in conservation, private, intergovernmental and not-for-profit sectors, wasn’t enough to secure a job in her field.

Everywhere Obodi applied, she was told her international degrees weren’t recognized. Even after she enrolled in the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto and had her credentials certified, she consistently heard that she needed Canadian experience, but no one suggested how she could get some. “That alone was one of my biggest barriers,” she says. (Late last year, the Ontario government announced it would introduce legislation banning the use of Canadian work experience as a requirement in job postings or applications, a first in Canada.)

It was Obodi’s case worker at the shelter who connected her with Up With Women/ Exponenti’elles, a national charity that helps recently homeless and at-risk women, trans women, non-binary, Two-Spirit, and other gender diverse individuals build a sustainable pathway out of poverty.

The program is centred around a year of one-on-one coaching — two hours per month — with an International Coaching Federation-certified professional. Participants also come together to support each other, network and build community, have access to bi-monthly webinars featuring guest experts, as well as referrals to wrap-around supports for such things as housing and food security, legal support, personal finances and immigration guidance.

The charity operates in four provinces — Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia — and has a staff of 18. Within six to 12 months, even during the pandemic, participants have seen their average income rise by as much as $15,000, with one in five earning more than $50,000 by the end of the program, according to Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Obodi eventually took a job as a cleaner for 18 months while she worked toward getting a post-graduate Certificate in Project Management at George Brown College in Toronto. In 2021, after completing the Up With Women coaching, she got a job at a financial institution as a branch client advisor. Since then, she has worked her way up to a position as project practitioner at its head office.

“I love that I’m able to look back just four years and really see the journey from homelessness to receiving social welfare to now paying taxes,” said Obodi, who became a permanent resident of Canada in 2022 and will qualify to become a citizen in November 2024.

Critical support from Scotiabank

Scotiabank has committed $300,000 over two years to help Up With Women bring its services to more women in need across British Columbia, Alberta, the Greater Toronto Area, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The community investment is part of ScotiaRISE, the Bank’s 10-year, $500-million community investment initiative aimed at strengthening economic resilience and inclusion among disadvantaged groups.

Multi-year donations are critically important to the sustainability of an organization, said Lia Grimanis, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Up With Women. “We’re singing for our supper every year, which makes it very difficult to grow.”

Reaching out to all the organizations — refugee and newcomer, mental health and disability, single mothers’, youth and LGBTQ — that can connect people who would benefit from the coaching offered by Up With Women takes a lot of time and work, Grimanis said.

“ScotiaRISE provides funding to help people overcome the barriers that stand in their way, and we are delighted to help Up With Women to grow and reach more women in locations across Canada,” said Maria Saros, Vice President & Global Head, Social Impact at Scotiabank. “We are so proud be able to support their expansion, which includes building relationships with shelters and organizations supporting women, and to recruit the coaches, technology and staff that help women to positively change the direction of their lives.”

Path to homelessness

There are multiple reasons women find themselves homeless or living in precarious situations, but poverty is the common denominator. “If you’re living in poverty, you are at risk of homelessness,” Grimanis said.

Women who are living with a disability, are racialized, raising children on their own, are First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, or have precarious immigration status make up a disproportionate number of the homeless, with only about 26% being substance users (drugs and/or alcohol), and 16% suffering from mental illness, according to Up With Women Many have also faced domestic violence, abuse, and trauma.

Grimanis understands what drives homelessness among women better than most people, having taken a similar path to many of her clients. When Grimanis was 16 her grandmother died, and her father and uncle spiralled into depression and violence often directed at her. Feeling she had nowhere to turn, Grimanis slept at various friends’ homes, eventually wearing out her welcome.

“You lose friends really quickly when you’re sleeping on their couches. And then you have to make new friends and you don’t have time to vet them. And you can’t see the dangers coming,” she said about that time in her life. 

When she was 19, Grimanis found her way to a shelter and slowly began to rebuild her life. She made herself a promise to find a way to help other women get out of the cycle of poverty. “My entire life became focused on fulfilling that promise. I made my life into a story that would inspire somebody else to believe that they could have it, too.”

Although it went undiagnosed until she was 45 years old, Grimanis traces much of her situation to being autistic. “When you look at autism in the context of violence, you don’t see the escalation happening, no red flags. It’s like you don’t know the train is coming until you get hit by it. And being a young woman just exacerbated that,” she said.

“Homelessness among autistics is very high. Many women never get diagnosed. We see a lot of mothers with autistic children, the children are getting diagnosed, but the moms are not. We’re good at masking.”

At the same time, Grimanis credits her autism with helping her get her first job in software sales despite being under qualified. “Because I was autistic, I didn’t realize that ‘we’ll call you’ was a no, so I kept calling,” she said.

A charity is born

It took 20 years for Grimanis to get offered any coaching. That happened when she was working in business intelligence and predictive analytics software for SAS making more than $250,000 a year. “All I could think was, I could have used this years ago. The people who need it the most would never be able to afford it.”

That realization put Up With Women in motion. Nearly 15 years ago, Grimanis launched the charity with the idea to solicit coaches to commit to serving one low-income, at-risk person for a year at no cost. It was a small ask that would make a dramatic difference in many women’s lives, she said.

“We saw immediate and dramatic changes working with refugees and people who were fleeing violence, in their employment, in being able to launch businesses, and most of all in their confidence. It was pretty amazing.”

Importance of coaching

One thing that stood out for Obodi was the personal assessment test Up With Women used to match her with the right coach. “They didn’t just assign you to whoever was available. I matched very highly with my coach. He never ever told me what to do. He wanted me to believe in myself; to dream big,” she said.

Obodi is still benefiting from his support, as they continue their monthly sessions.

“He saw my progress and he promised to continue supporting me. He has been instrumental in helping me see myself as someone who’s deserving of this life.”