HELP... or ASAH...

While Eric was landing softly in the corporate embrace of KPMG NZ, I needed to find a new job in Auckland. I had started searching "seek.co.nz" months before we left the States. I had e-mailed several applications and got a few responses back. I had one phone interview with HELP (or Auckland Sexual Abuse HELP Foundation) and a few days after we had arrived in New Zealand, I interviewed with them face-to-face. The interview went very well and, although I had some reservations, when the job offer came a day later, I accepted it. I started working on May 1st as a Duty Counsellor on HELP's Crisis Team.

Even though I found the job not quite IT for me, I really enjoyed the people I worked with. The agency is a feminist one (run by and staffed by women only). Auckland Sexual Abuse HELP is a community counselling agency offering support and therapy for women, young adult women and children who have experienced sexual assault or abuse.

In those early weeks and months after coming to New Zealand, I found HELP a very warm, nurturing, and holding environment... just what I needed at that time. I made a few good friends there and felt lucky and grateful for their warm and welcoming attitude. And yet, with all the amazing women at the agency, the job itself was just not stimulating enough for me and it was not fulfilling my professional aspirations. Thus, with mixed feelings, I put in my notice at the end of June. When the four-week notice period came to an end, I was asked to stay on until either i find a new job or the agency hires a new staff. I was very happy to do that... until mid-August.

Meantime I was looking for a new job... again. It really helped having worked in this field those few months. I knew what services different agencies in town offered and how they operated. It did not hurt either that everybody knows everybody here in Auckland (seriously!!) and the news travels very fast. When the position opened at an agency working with adolescent boys, I knew about it fairly quickly. Thus I applied and got a job at SAFE... (to be continued...)