Sid Ford (and Tracey Hood, Sarah Daily, and Tim), YANA, Baltimore, Maryland, July 12, 2004: Sid Ford is the founder and executive director of YANA, a drop in center for women who have prostituted.

The founding of YANA:

SF: I had a dream. Where I got the words, “You Are Never Alone” and realized they were important. I wrote them down, I didn’t know what they went to. And then a few weeks later I saw a news report of two women who were chained in their customer’s basement and had been tortured and he was going to kill them, he was a serial killer. They were able to work themselves free from the wall they were chained to. They ran into the street and neighbors came out and saw them and were horrified they had been treated that way and wrapped them with their coats and with their care and concern and got them help and the women were able to move on. And the two images of the women suffering and the community response changed my life. I said, “I have to do something.” It was something I was called to do. I can’t stand the idea that women would have no options…have no control… so that they were harmed.

I called some folks that I knew would have an openness to a different kind of outreach program and I went out to the community and had a meeting. From there, it just evolved. We built a service base around the needs of the women.

More to come...