Winnipeg woman with significant challenges sells art to fund her travel dreams
"Oh I love crafting. I love making crafts. It definitely helps during tough times to make crafts. It definitely helps my self esteem," said Messmer, who is deaf, through an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter.
Messmer lives with cerebral palsy and has an intellectual disability. She also lives on her own with minimal support through In the Company of Friends, a program administered by Innovative Life Options.
"It's a model that allows people a lot of choice and they direct their lives, they do all the planning," said Patti Chiappetta, executive director at Innovative Life Options.
For Messmer, her placement In the Company of Friends came at a very dire moment, says her mother, Shirlea Smith.
"An agency in town thought that they should make the decisions for her, and because she didn't have a substitute decision maker they manipulated her into a bad decision," Smith said.
Messmer subsequently lost weight and developed an eating disorder, Smith says.
Now, those days are behind her.
"I can set up goals for myself and then figure out how to, you know, what I need to get things in place so that I can make those things happen," said Messmer, who is saving her money for a trip to Hawaii.
"It's important to have really good self-esteem," she said. "It's important to feel really good about yourself. You're not alone.You can do things. You don't have to be stuck, and I would be happy to help anybody who needed my support."
Messmer and her pursuits are the subject of a new three-minute documentary by students in the Create program at Sisler High School. Sisler's post-high program trains students in the creative digital arts, including filmmaking.
Create students Venice Pasaraba, Justina Finch and Semira Abolore produced the new short video.
Meet the filmmakers
More about Project POV: Sisler Create
CBC Manitoba's Project POV: Sisler Create is a storytelling collaboration that partners filmmaking students with CBC Manitoba journalists to produce short docs. You can see past projects here.
The Winnipeg School Division's Create program is hosted at Sisler High School and trains post-high students in the creative digital arts.
During fall 2024, CBC journalists taught storytelling to filmmaking students and led producing workshops at Sisler.
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