News from our community - January 2025

Amour Destine have a free event coming up on Feb 8 for FGM awareness day in the community, open to anyone that wishes to join us for a range of workshops and social gathering.

Find out more: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/unite-365-days-to-prevent-gender-based-abuse-tickets-1077832910249

Every3seconds is based in London and runs online and in – person groups for women experiencing domestic abuse or concerned about their relationships.

The Oasis of Strength 12-week program is completely FREE and is designed with women at its core, prioritising their needs and experiences.

They provide a safe and nurturing space where women can start to re-empower themselves, rebuild their confidence and resilience. In this space they will be encouraged to explore their strengths, process their experiences and connect with others who understand their journey.

The start of the next online programme will be 15^th May 7pm - 8.30 pm. For further details please email '[email protected]'.

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RISE UK

Jo Gough, CEO of RISE, has the pleasure of introducing their Communities Rising End of Project Report in the 30th Year of RISE:

This is both a celebration and a moment to reflect how far we have come and how far we still have to go – it launches the voices of our communities and the women survivors living in these communities – they are leading, and we will walk alongside amplifying their voices building a future where all women and girls can live freely from domestic abuse. The energy to make this project happen is testament to these women - it was organised, facilitated and driven by our community members as RISE Ambassadors, Connectors, Researchers and Change Makers. We thank them and our many supporters, contributors and partners in the RISE community. They have stepped up and shown dedication to ending violence and abuse for women, children and LGBT people.

The RISE Communities Rising Project was conceived in 2014 and born in 2016 previously called the RISE Big Lottery Community Project and funded through the Lottery Women and Girls Fund. I can still hear the calls from the women in our RISE Voices group telling us they wanted to be more involved and wanted to be activists. This went right to my heart as a true believer in a concept called Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and so we decided to create a pioneering project that built on the ‘gifts and strengths’ of the women survivors and the communities around them. We wanted to strengthen the local community response as well as building capacity where women experiencing complexity, older women or those living with disabilities or from black and/or racially minoritised heritage had been previously let-down. We built Assertive Outreach (for women experiencing complexity), Older and Disabled people support as well as a Women of Colour service working alongside community partners including: BHT, Hangleton and Knoll project, Bridging Change, Possibility People, Speak Up, Blatchington Court Trust, Equinox, Impact Initiatives, TDC, Hour Glass and many others.

After thousands of expressions of interest to the Big Lottery Women and Girls Fund RISE was one of very few securing funding for a four-year project which was evaluated nationally. We worked with some of the biggest names in our field including Prof Liz Kelly and Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs OBE as well as Women’s Aid and Imkaan (Black Feminist organisation). After this first project we moved to phase two with funding through Lottery Reaching Communities to further develop this work with communities and survivors in the lead. With this report we are marking the end of this project but we intend to ensure its legacy will not be lost.

Go here to see the project report (it’s very visual and has a tool to read the text):

RISE-Communities-Rising-End-of-Project-Lottery-REPORT-2024-compressed.pdf

Also go here for more information about the project (our website has a range of accessibility and translation tools):

Communities Rising Project | RISE