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Trisha Baptie Is The True Spirit of Orato.com

Submitted by Paul Sullivan on April 22, 2008 | Comments (2)

It must be spring. Nice things are happening around here. Earlier this month, we were honored by the Webby Awards as one of the top 15 news sites in the world, and this week, Orato.com correspondent Trisha Baptie is being honored by a high-profile Vancouver-based charity, the Coast Mental Health Foundation, as a winner of its annual Courage to Come Back Award.

If you haven’t been following Trisha’s journey on the site, let me bring you up to speed. For many years, Vancouver’s street prostitutes were terrorized by a serial killer who turned out to be a weird suburban pig farmer who lured the women to his pig farm, murdered them and then ground them up and fed them to the pigs – at least that’s the most coherent version. No one will ever know the whole story unless Willie Pickton decides to spill the beans, chapter and verse.

When it came time for Pickton’s trial, we at Orato.com decided that maybe the best way to cover it would be to get a prostitute to report on it through her eyes. A number answered the call, including the two terrific ex-prostitutes we eventually enlisted: Pauline VanKoll and Trisha Baptie, who had a quarter-century of streetwalking experience between them.

At first, our friends in the traditional media thought it was a publicity stunt – maybe some still do, but Trish and Pauline made believers out of many, as they turned up faithfully at the trial, even though the revelations threatened to upset their hard-won equilibrium, and filed numerous powerful stories, which you can read here.

Pauline is traveling in Thailand, but Trisha is still very much a part of the Vancouver community, helping to lead a crusade to eradicate prostitution, which she now sees as quasi-legal rape. She’s come a long way from her own streetcorner and the Courage to Come Back Award reflects that.

We would like to add our voice to the cheers for Trisha, and for all of you Orato.com correspondents who takes the plunge and have the courage to tell your stories to the world. You are the heart and soul of this site.


Comments

Re: Trisha Baptie Is The True Spirit of Orato.com

By johnhatch, April 24, 2008 at 11:54

Congratulations to Trish Baptie. What courage!

For twenty years my wife Brenda Carr ran 'The Studio', an art program for Vancouver street-youth, and I was always a committed volunteer. We saw our share of horrors on the Downtown Eastside- crystal meth, heroin, crack, prostitution (involving ever younger girls and boys) and never a shortage of customers, hunger, police brutality, lack of vital services, etc.

The program tried to shelter kids from the streets, and had quite some success because so many were so willing to accept help and seek new directions. It offered rudimentary food, art, and whatever else might be necessary, thanks to a network of very fine and caring people.

And some failures. A young girl, Sheila had been having problems all too typical to the area, drugs, alcohol, problems with family etc., but seemed to be like so many others- a few rough months, even years, but with a little help she would come through it just fine, even stronger for her experiences. We saw that phenomonon over and over.

But I guess she made one bad decision, and became a victim of Robert Pickton. Like so many victims of the Downtown Eastside, Sheila was smart, kind, generous, funny, sometimes sad, but hopeful and determined. She deserved a chance. She was making it.

Until you know some of the people, you might not know how heartbreaking human and normal, and loving they are. Drug problems are fixable. Life on the streets doesn't have to be forever. Family relations can be patched up, sometimes. Time does heal. That Pickton was able to harm so many women is testament to indifference by elements of our society toward human beings who are sometimes our moral superiors.

There are now more homeless than ever on our streets and our politicians trot out the same excuses and make the same promises they have for the last thirty years. Robert Pictkon surely murdered Sheila, but he had lots of help.

Re: Trisha Baptie Is The True Spirit of Orato.com

By shawna, April 22, 2008 at 15:05

I would also like to cheer "yay Trish"...it's been an honor to be your friend! You are an example to each of us of courage, passion and generosity and I am so proud of you for being recognized with this award. You emobody what it's all about & you provide hope for anyone who thinks something better is beyond their reach.