– [Voiceover] This is an AMI This Week Shortcut – [Voiceover] I'm Jennie Bovard for Accessible Media
– [Voiceover] My name is Dolores Adams, and I've been with the Look Good Feel Better program for over 20 years now The Look Good Feel Better program is a program where we help women undergoing cancer treatments, the side effects of their treatments, and we do how to teach them how to look after their skin, make up, and we also have wigs here for them to try on, and hair care as well – [Voiceover] Look Good Feel Better workshops are held at 120 hospitals and cancer facilities across the country Many volunteers have worked as aestheticians and have a personal connection to the class – [Voiceover] I'm a person who likes to help other people
There's certainly been a lot of family members and people that I personally know that have had cancer, so this is one way that I can help these women feel good about themselves – [Voiceover] Look Good Feel Better started in 1992, and has since helped 175 thousand women It's the only program of its kind in Canada – [Voiceover] When you lose your hair and you go through your treatments and your skin is very pale, and you don't really look like yourself when you're looking in the mirror, but by the time we're finished, at the end of the night they look like themselves again – [Voiceover] These free classes are two hours long
Participants are each given a bag of donated make up products to take home Volunteers show them how to adjust to the physical effects that treatment can have They teach women different techniques like how to keep their skin healthy, and how to recreate lost eyebrows – [Voiceover] My name is Brenda Atwood, and I'm from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia I received my diagnosis a year ago February
I wanted to feel better And I do And I could feel myself sort of letting myself go a little bit and not liking the way I looked Seems like everybody in the shop felt the same way and they had a little uplift and know that somebody cares enough to do this for them – [Voiceover] Brenda arrived with some friends from her cancer care facility
She felt a bond with everyone in the class – [Brenda] It was fun It was informative It was comrades You don't know people, but you feel how they feel
It'll take you away from some of the harsh reality of it all It's something to share with friends, and something to make you feel important, and thought of – [Voiceover] Jennie Bovard, AMI, Halifax