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Callie Moss
10 November, 2015
Mrs. DeBock
English IV Honors
Do Shelters Help Women in Need?
Shelters have been around for years and are enormously helpful to people in need. The
shelters provide necessary items for the people in need and do everything in their abilities to do
even the smallest of deeds that could make a large impact on the women who are affected (Safe
Place for Abused Women). The shelters offer a safe place for victims of abuse or poverty and
help them find hope in even the toughest situations. The shelters offer everything from clothing
to counseling and try their best to help the women out in even the toughest of situations
(Mareck). Shelters seem like they could have little impact on the womens lives but they help the
women in ways that are incomprehensible if you have not been in the situations that the women
are in (Bridging the Gap in the Valley). The shelters coddle the distressed women while also
empowering them and helping them gain confidence and compose themselves. Shelters help
women in need because they help the women provide for themselves, provide for their children,
and help them out until they can get back on their feet.
Shelters help women to provide for themselves. The shelters provide a safe haven for
women who have been battered or impoverished (Concert for lifeline, Womens shelter). For the
women who lost every shred of hope for a good life, the shelter helps transform them to the state
of mind of young kids who believe that everything is good in the world and nothing is
impossible. The shelters help the women the women gather themselves and to help stabilize their

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tumultuous lives and help them make their topsy-turvy minds calm and at ease. The shelters
provide the women with everything they need from clothing to food items to help them stay alive
and well. The shelters are often ran by churches and other non-profit organizations (Bridging
the Gap in the Valley). The shelter movement has been gaining momentum and has gained
many followers and supporters since it was started in England in the 1960s (Mareck). The
shelters are run almost entirely by volunteers and other people who genuinely care about the
women and want the best possible life for them. Shelters are immensely helpful and beneficial to
the women and truly do impact them and help them provide for themselves.
Shelters are not only beneficial to the women, but also to their children. The children of
victims of abuse of poverty are often immeasurably affected by their situations to the point where
they need just as much help and support and the women do (Coat, Blanket Drive runs through
January). The children are directly impacted by the shelters because not only does it help their
mother/guardian; it helps them as well. The children often arrive to the shelters in just as bad, if
not worse shape than the women do so it is extremely important that the shelters provide for
them as well. The children who visit the shelters are often scared because of their situations and
the shelters try to help and alleviate their fears (Roberts). The children are often just as battered
and bruised as their mothers and are confused about their situations and the shelters help them
understand what is going on while also helping them overcome their difficulties ("Group
Launches Shelter for Battered Women, Children"). The shelters are little beacons of hope for the
children and their mothers who have lost everything but continue to persevere with the help and
backing of the shelters.
Shelters were ultimately set up on the basis of helping the women get back on their feet.
The whole purpose of the shelter movement was to provide a safe place for the women who were

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victims of everything from domestic abuse to severe poverty (Safe Place for Abused Women).
The shelters aim to help the women get their lives together. The volunteers at the shelter range
from counselors to kitchen staff but all of them have one thing in common: they want to help the
women. In his paper, Victor Lau wrote about what he believed a good society was and he
stated that a good society is one in which our social needs are met before our own personal
needs. Shelters run off of the basis of the good society because they are there solely for the
purpose of helping the women. The shelters do everything they possibly can to help create a
positive environment for the women so that they can strive to overcome their discriminations and
to help them get back into the world with a better outlook on life. They want to encourage the
women as much as possible and try to help build their confidence so that when they do get back
out into the world, they have a positive outlook on their situation. The shelters like to do
anything and everything they can to help put smiles on the women's faces and attempt to
transport the women to a world where everything is good, no matter how temporary that state of
mind may be (Concert for Lifeline, Womens shelter). The shelters help the women with both
their physical and mental states to make sure that they are completely healthy in every way. The
shelters help the women cope and eventually overcome their problems and help them get the
pieces of their shattered lives back together; always leaving them in better shape than they were
previous to visiting the shelters.
Shelters help women in need because they help the women provide for themselves,
provide for their children, and help them out until they can get back on their feet. For women and
children with dilapidated spirits, shelters are a source of hope and optimism. The shelters help
the battered women gather themselves and help them to adopt a much more positive outlook on
life. The shelters help to provide everything from food and clothing to a place where the women

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can stay until they can survive on their own (Safe Place for Abused Women). The shelters are
almost entirely run by volunteers and on the sole purpose of providing the best they can for the
women who are so badly in need of help and support. The shelters often run clothing drives and
advertise the need for donations to keep their shelters afloat so they can continue to support the
burdened women (Coat, Blanket Drive runs through January). The shelters are examples of the
kindness and good-heartedness of the members of society (Lau). The shelters main purpose is to
help the women and do every possible thing that they can to help the women and their children.
The shelters may seem minimally effective to some people, but in reality it helps some women in
ways that are inestimable. The shelters have many purposes but their overall goal is to help the
women.

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Works Cited
Bridging the Gap in the Valley." Daily Review [Towanda, PA] 20 Apr. 2009. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Oct. 2015."
"Coat, Blanket Drive runs through January." Victoria Advocate [Victoria, TX] 16 Jan. 2015.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
"Concert for Lifeline, Women's shelter." Africa News Service 5 June 2000: 1008154u7389.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
"Group Launches Shelter for Battered Women, Children." Africa News Service 24 May 2001:
1008144u2092. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
Lau, Victor. "Rethinking the Good Society." Canadian Dimension May-June 1997: 13. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
Marecek, Mary. "Women's Shelter Movement." Breaking Free From Partner Abuse (1999): 85.
Points of View Reference Center. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
Roberts, Avril. "Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Suffer Emotional and Behavioral
Problems." Child Abuse. Ed. Heidi Williams. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing
Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Home is Where the Hurt Is: Children Exposed to Domestic
Violence Face Psychological Woes." CrossCurrents (Summer 2007): 12-13. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
"Safe Place for Abused Women." Africa News Service 20 Aug. 2015. Opposing Viewpoints in
Context. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.