TL;DR: Providing education on addictions to sex workers.

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Update | June 22, 2024 

During the few months we have spent working on hammock, it has undergone many changes. The final idea of our project is to look into how to provide education on addictions to sex workers.

1) What problem are you solving and why does it matter?

The lack of education concerning addiction among sex worker. During our project, we have been looking at the different types of stressors that can also lead to that. We have also specifically put emphasis on developing strategies to this that emphasize community as a protective factor.

2) What you’ve done so far and what lessons you’ve learned?

We have worked to outline various aspects of the project in preparation to pitch for funding of our first phase. We started by looking into the role of stress in addiction and the communities that might be most impacted by stress. We also analyzed how we could potentially reach, connect with, and give the tools to these communities to manage not only their own relationship with addiction if they have one, but also the role they can play in supporting their peers. Once we had these factors laid out, we ended up selecting full-service sex workers as the group we want to initially work with on this project.

From there, we laid out potential phases to our project, and determined that we should focus on the first phase of our project for our pitch. Our first phase is to run a focus group, potentially multiple meetings of such, where we work directly with sex workers to learn what specific things they feel would be most important in a program that focuses on the self and the broader community. We want to be able to synthesize and implement this knowledge in the next two phases, possibly with direct advisors from these groups willing to participate in the further phases and delivery.

We also have started planning out budgetary considerations for ensuring the space is actually mutually beneficial to the sex workers involved, through honoraria, food, transit compensation, practical care packages and more. We also have put time into analyzing from a more personal level how we might connect with individuals, and in this case a major factor is one of our project developers having a history of FSSW that individuals can connect with, as means to alsp empower them to see themselves in this role in future too. The main thing we have learned is that the process of taking on something ambitious like this is not always linear, but with time the ideas will click. Maintaining curiosity and openness to change is important. We have also learned that with a project like this, breaking it down into manageable pieces is super important.

3) What next and how can people get involved?
The next phase of our project is to get at least ten members of our target group to join a focus group aimed to not only help us make our educational material, but also helps us have a better understanding of some other things that push people towards that path.

We would also eventually like to recruit a few lived-experience advisors for the project, so keep your eyes peeled on that. We also need more members on our project team as a whole for it to move forward, especially fellow folks with complex lived experiences with poverty, addiction, and/or sex work (but all are welcome!). If interested, you can reach out to MINDS directly and mention wanting to join Hammock.