Ten Years, Ten Women: Oil

Before joining, Oil was living a fairly settled life. Her situation wasn't a crisis, she was simply going through her days. The Better Me program looked genuinely valuable; she was not in urgent need of help.

What she found in the program shifted how she processes the world. Through shared activities and conversation with classmates and teachers, she came to understand that information from a screen isn't the same as understanding gained through other people's lived experience. She learned self-management and daily life skills alongside self-protection, and says she still applies pieces of all of it across different parts of her life today.

She's since moved from massage work into a specialized role as a spa therapist, a shift she attributes partly to the English skills the program gave her, which opened up a wider range of clients and opportunities than she'd had access to before. She now actively encourages other women to join Better Me, including those who, like she once did, assume their lives are already fine as they are and don't see an obvious reason to enroll.

What she's proudest of today is close to home: her family and her children, and the fact that she's come as far as she has. She says she's still learning, and doesn't consider that a finished project.