Funding provides lifeline for rape crisis centres
Third Sector Online7 November 2008
Nineteen rape crisis centres across England and Wales will each receive
a share of £705,000 emergency funding, the Government has announced.
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Victims of domestic violence left out of social exclusion agenda
Society Guardian online28 October 2008
Cabinet office admits information too patchy for domestic violence to be included. Women's groups are outraged that victims of domestic violence have not been included in the government's social exclusion agenda.
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Battle cry for a system in crisis
Society Guardian10 September 2008
Many women's services, established after decades of struggles, are
being dismantled due to lack of secure funding. But the woman
representing them, Vivienne Hayes, is not giving up.
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UN joins campaign for more UK rape crisis funding
Professional Fundraising13 August 2008
The United Nations has called on the government to increase funding to rape crisis centres and put in place a sustainable funding plan to ensure their long-term survival.
The UN’s Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has published a report citing “serious failings” in the UK government’s efforts to promote equality for women and do away with discrimination. It recommends the government take urgent action to provide sustainable funding for rape crisis centres around England and Wales.
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Funding Crisis for Rape Crisis centres
Third Sector Online20 March 2008
Rape
Crisis centres are suffering "spectacular" under-funding because the
public sector will not give grants to single-sex organisations,
according to research by Rape Crisis and the Women's Resource Centre.
The
organisations surveyed 35 of the 38 Rape Crisis centres across the UK
and found that 69 per cent believed current financing conditions were
unsustainable. The research also found that 23 per cent of centres had
secured no funding whatsoever for the coming financial year.
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In praise of women's organisations
Third Sector magazine12 March 2008
I
often write in this column about the real difference that voluntary
organisations make to people's lives. This is certainly true in terms
of how the voluntary sector affects the lives of many thousands of
women.
Last Saturday marked the 100th anniversary of the first
march to celebrate International Women's Day. Since 1908, millions of
women all over the world have been marching and organising against
oppression, violence and discrimination on this day.
Where
public services stop for women, voluntary services start. The
importance of refuges and rape crisis centres cannot be overestimated.
The plight of women asylum seekers fleeing violence and rape abroad is
far too often unseen - by both the public and the state. The work of
organisations to raise the profile of these issues and help women to
establish safe havens here is often done against incredible odds.
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The Gender Equality Duty: Would it bring real equality in Britain?
Al-Nisa (magazine for Middle East Centre for Women's Rights (MECWR))October 2007
The
Gender Equality Duty (GED) is a legal requirement for public
authorities to eliminate unlawful discrimination between men and women
in the workplace. As Karen Moore, the Women Resource Centre Policy
Officer, has explained, most public bodies will have to show they are
achieving this by publishing a gender equality scheme, reviewing their
policies and practices to make sure they accommodate the diverse
requirements of women and men, consulting with stakeholders to agree on
the gender equality objectives that the gender equality scheme should
deal with and ensuring the proceedings in the scheme are well
implemented.
Link to MECWR website
Women's services hit by equality drive
Society Guardian17 October 2007
Women-only services are being eroded because of a belief among funding
bodies that gender equality has been achieved, says research released
today.
The Why Women? conference in London today will discuss
how, since the introduction of the gender equality duty in April this
year, women's groups are having to work harder to justify their
existence to funders.
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Charities call for Compact to expand role
Society Guardian12 September 2007
When the government launched the Compact Commission and appointed the
first compact commissioner last year, ministers promised it heralded
the start of a new dawn in the relationship between local government
bodies and their voluntary sector partners.
Less than a year
later, the commission is floundering. In June, Angela Sibson quit as
chief executive. Now its head, John Stoker, the compact commissioner,
has resigned.
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Depleted women's groups send SOS
Society Guardian21 February 2007
As more women's charities face closure, a new campaign is calling for
the government to help support groups that, for many abuse victims, are
the only place they can turn to.
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Capital losses
Society Guardian6 September 2006
Tory councils' plan to cut grant funds to London charities has raised the threat of closure for many voluntary organisations. For
10 years, the doors of the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre in
Croydon have been kept open to women across south London who have
suffered serious sexual violence and abuse, thanks to a £97,500 annual
grant from the Association of London Government (ALG).
The
centre's director, Yvonne Traynor, had no indication that things would
change until July 17, when the future of the centre, and 400 other
London voluntary organisations, was thrown into disarray. A proposal
tabled at an ALG grants committee meeting - the first since Labour's
losses in the local elections swung the ALG in favour of the
Conservatives - outlined a 33% cut in the £28m annually distributed to
voluntary groups across London.
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Voluntary sector faces shock cuts
Society Guardian23 August 2006
Voluntary
sector organisations in London and the mayor, Ken Livingstone, are at
loggerheads with the Association of Local Government (ALG) following a
surprise proposal by its grants committee to cut by a third funding for
voluntary groups operating in more than one borough.
The
recommendation by the grants committee that £9m of the annual £28m
grant be distributed by councils to organisations in their own
boroughs, rather than to the "cross-London" organisations to which the
money is usually allocated, has provoked a wave of protest.
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