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Megan Rosado ‘97 (written by Monica Friedman ‘96)
By Horace | August 7, 2007
Yesterday, I sent my own meager bio listing my victories for humanity, but I really want (with her permission) to share the story of one of my best friends from Antioch, who truly embodies every value for which Antioch stands, and who is almost certainly too busy and too shy to trumpet her own considerable accomplishments.
Megan Rosado graduated from Antioch in 1997 with a self-designed major in community organization, based on her interests in social work and peace studies, and took a job with the Chicago Abused Women’s Coalition, which provides shelter services to women victimized by domestic violence. Although this is an emotionally draining and typically low-paying field, it was Megan’s first choice for employment. Beginning at a poverty-level salary, she took on the responsibilities of a Domestic Violence Counselor. Her clients, many of whom had no work history or dealt with substance abuse issues, had ninety days to reconstruct their lives, often leaving behind homes, families, and possessions. Megan labored diligently with each to ensure that they could build a life free of violence, generally working more than sixty hours a week.
An unwritten agency policy dictated that, domestic violence counseling being such a trying occupation, counselors should not hold the position longer than two years, to prevent burnout. At the end of two years’ tenure, CAWC created a new position for Megan, Head Counselor. Megan continued to counsel clients while at the same time overseeing all the other counselors and taking on other organizational duties.
Moving up the administrative ranks, for a short period, she worked as a Legal Advocate, accompanying battered women to court, where they often had to face their abusers, and advising them of their rights. Megan then began her current position, Volunteer Coordinator. In addition to many other essential responsibilities, she took on the recruitment and training of shelter volunteers. The training program, an intensive series of once-a-week workshops, runs for several months at a time. Its focus being to educate not only on domestic violence issues, but also race, class, gender, and other topics of sensitivity and tolerance, these trainings require a great deal of organization. Megan is responsible for dictating the content, and hiring speakers, often leading workshops and discussions herself.
In addition, Megan took a second job counseling abusers at night. When asked to co-facilitate the batterers group, her principles required her to accept. For Megan, it was a matter of putting her money where her mouth was, and after years of advocating court-ordered counseling for the perpetrators of domestic violence, she could not refuse when asked to lead such a program, despite its encroachment on her already limited time.
For ten years, Megan has consistently demonstrated the highest commitment to the work of domestic violence counseling, not only achieving success in her field and helping the people of Chicago, but standing every day on the front lines of the battle for humanity, and every day winning new victories. Megan is a shining example of the best that Antioch has to offer the world, a constant pillar of the community, regardless of what community she is in. If every graduate could move through the world with her intense work ethic and strong moral code, Horace Mann’s vision might be not only a rallying cry for Antiochians past, present, and future, but a global vision communicated through a language of good works.
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