An inspiring testimonial: the journey to self-sufficiency
When you cross paths with Mélodie these days, the impression you’re left with is that of an engaged young woman who is passionate about tapping into her own experience to advocate for young people’s rights. It’s almost impossible to imagine all the roadblocks she has encountered. Today, she shares her inspiring story with us.
Mélodie didn’t fit the stereotype of someone who was at risk of homelessness. She was a good student. She didn’t have a convoluted history with youth protection services. She was simply on the outs with her family, and the gulf between them was widening.
At age 16, she decided to leave home and move to an outlying community with her boyfriend, who was grappling with serious health concerns. She travelled back and forth to Montreal with him for his treatments, bunking down in a cot next to his hospital bed, until the day the staff asked her to find alternate arrangements. The healing process had begun.
An unforgiving city winter
And so began her descent into homelessness. She would spend her days in the hospital, and her nights outdoors. After her boyfriend died, her situation went from bad to worse. It was early winter and the beginning of what would be several years living on the street.
“Winter is always the toughest time. You have to find a place to sleep. One winter, we built an igloo. The next, we lived in a container. The year after that, we squatted somewhere,” she said.
Mélodie would go to the Bunker, eat at the Day Centre cafeteria, interact with other youth experiencing unstable living conditions and lean into the warmth of a supportive community of people in similar circumstances.
She endured many more blows over the years. She lost several friends to overdose. And then it clicked: Mélodie realized that she didn’t want to be next on the list. She went into therapy. The healing process had begun.
A voice of youth, for youth
Mélodie’s journey did not stop there. She became a peer helper, and that gave her the chance to make her voice heard. Her background and her work with youth came to the attention of Coalition Jeunes+, a group set up in 2018 by Dans la rue to involve marginalized youth in decisions affecting them.
They invited her to join them in advancing their mission of prevention and engaging youth with a wide range of homelessness-related experience.
Today, Mélodie is part of a movement that is bigger than she is — a movement where every story has value. She is helping to build a space where youth can talk about their struggles and work to create change.
She is fighting for something simple and essential: for youth like her to be heard.
Every day, she is doing her part to build a fairer future, where nobody is left behind. She is quick to remind people that every voice matters, and that sometimes sharing your story is the key to helping other people change theirs.
In Dans la rue’s video Regarder avec le cœur, Mélodie tells her poignant and life-affirming story.
