Organisations using ICTS to end violence against women

The Women's Resource Centre supports women's organisations to be more effective and sustainable. We provide training, information, resources and one-to-one support on a range of organisational development issues. We also lobby decision makers on behalf of the women's not-for-profit sector for improved representation and funding.

Our members work in a wide range of fields delivering services to and campaigning on behalf of some of the most marginalised communities of women. The majority of women's organisations in the UK deliver direct services to women, many of whom have or are experiencing violence and abuse.

Under the current political threats to the women's sector we started our 'Why women?' campaign to demonstrate the need as well as the economic benefits of the continued funding of women-only projects. In addition withdrawal of funding would certainly dent current service provision in a number of key areas - domestic violence, rape and sexual violence, trafficking in women.

London Centre for Personal Safety

The London Centre for Personal Safety (LCPS) is a charity which works to promote resistance to violence, and encourages positive and pro-active responses. We aim to prevent violence, reduce the fear of violence, and develop individuals self-confidence and ability to respond positively to threats to their safety.

We provide personal safety and self-defence training, a Consultancy service, information, advice and resources on a number of safety issues.

We are pioneers in our field and have conducted Women's Safety Programmes for thousands of local area residents and workers, in a series of projects across Greater London, in partnership with local authority and regeneration bodies.

The bulk of our clients are women and children from the most
marginalised communities. Other users include people with disabilities, older people, women in the sex industry frontline workers in the statutory and voluntary sector, and minority ethnic groups.

We are an independently evaluated project. Our work is acknowledged as an example of best practice and effective prevention, in the The Home Office document 'Tackling Sexual Violence: a guidance for local partnerships" (2006), The Lillith Project (2005), the Home Office and Cabinet Office Women's Unit in ' Living Without Fear' (2000).

LCPS and Women's Self-Defence

Women's self-defence challenges the stereotype of women and girls being passive victims, who do not and cannot resist harassment and physical assaults. It both recognises and validates women's active resistance, expands their options for action whilst reinforcing a sense of entitlement, that women have the right to defend themselves. (Corinna Seith & Liz Kelly, 2003)

Women's Self Defence (WSD) is not a martial art or sport. It is a gender aware and comprehensive provision, drawing its practice from feminist theory, bringing together physical, social, cognitive and emotional dimensions. We campaign to promote self-defence for women and to counteract ill-informed and stereotypical views of WSD, which continue to be a barrier to women and girls access to the provision.

It is important that policy makers, funders and women's organisations are aware of the powerful contribution that WSD makes to the goal of ending violence against women,and of the evidence that challenges misrepresentations of WSD.

IMPACT

LCPS is also the home of IMPACT UK, offering cutting edge, single-sex self-defence. IMPACT is a unique form of self-defence, which allows students to practice verbal and full-force physical skills in realistic "adrenalised" scenarios, on specially trained male instructors wearing protective suits. Women instructors lead all training, demonstrating and teaching the techniques.

Inspired by the ‘Women's Dirty Laundry Project’ in India and the ‘Clothesline Project’ in the USA, London Feminist Network bring "I Did Not Ask For It" Campaign to the UK. We want to provide a creative way for women to bear witness to male violence. We have created an ‘I Did Not Ask For It’ blogsite of images and next year we plan to make a public installation. More and more women are using blogsites to express themselves, share ideas and discuss issues. So please read on about our campaign and share any insights with us on our blogsite.

GLDVP

Who is GLDVP?

This year GLDVP celebrated 10 years of working to reduce and prevent domestic violence. GLDVP provides support to frontline services and, in partnership with statutory and voluntary organisations, delivers the Mayor’s London Domestic Violence Strategy. This work has enabled the development of innovative projects addressing specific areas with intersections to domestic violence, including mental health, faith communities, drugs and alcohol, children and young people and women and the criminal justice system.

End Violence Against Women is a ground-breaking campaign representing 7 million individuals and organisations across the UK. We are calling on the Government, public bodies and others to take concerted action to end violence against women. We believe we can and must create a world free from the threat and reality of violence against women.

Members of the coalition include Rape Crisis, Women’s Aid, the Women’s National Commission, Amnesty International UK and the TUC. We include survivors, campaigners and service providers.

“Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation and it is perhaps the most pervasive”.
Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN.

Eaves Housing for Women - Lilith Project

The Lilith Project was established in 2003 as a second tier agency to carry out research and awareness raising on all issues of violence against women (VAW).

We are managed by Eaves Housing for Women and funded by the Association of London Government and the Home Office. Lilith has a well developed track record of highlighting issues of VAW with action oriented outcomes that enable agencies and individuals to challenge misogynist practices.
website at www.eaves4women.co.uk

In 1989 a gunman massacred 14 female students at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal after declaring his hatred of feminism and of women. Since then, there have been annual campaigns and events to mark this horrific event and to make a stand against violence against women. It is out of this movement that the White Ribbon Campaign was born in Canada in 1991. It was started by a group of men that felt that they, as men, had a responsibility to speak out against violence against women and to encourage other men to do so too.

In 2004 the White Ribbon Campaign came to the UK. Each year during 16 Days, the White Ribbon Campaign encourages men and boys to wear the white ribbon as the sign of a personal pledge never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women.

Throughout the year the White Ribbon Campaign encourages men to do educational work in schools, work places and communities and to support local women's groups. The White Ribbon Campaign lends its voice to the debate on issues around violence against women at conferences and events and in the media.

The Women’s Library was founded in 1926 as the Library of the London Society for Women’s Service. It has been part of London Metropolitan University since 1977, when the university was known as City Polytechnic. The University is also home to the Child & Women Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU).

The Women’s Library documents and records the experiences of women in Britain. It is the most extensive resource on women’s history in the country and their Reading Room is invaluable for anyone researching any aspect of women’s experiences. As mainstream media and texts still marginalise the experiences of women the Women’s Library serves an important function in housing the testimonies of women.

As part of their explorations into the experiences of women, the Women’s Library runs a programme of exhibitions. Its current exhibition is Sinners, Scroungers, Saints: Lone Parents Past and Present.

Sinners, Scroungers, Saints

The exhibition explores the experiences and issues affecting single mothers in different circumstances and social situations at different points in history. Whilst single mothers are usually seen as a drain on society’s benefits system, the reality is that the proportion of births registered to one parent is declining, the majority of lone mothers are divorced and 60% of them are in paid employment.

The exhibition runs from 17 October 2007 to 29 March 2008
(Closed 21 December 2007 - 2nd January 2008) and is free to enter.

Every year, groups of women at universities, colleges, women’s groups, community groups, theatre companies and clubs all over the world come together to stage performances of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. 90% of the money raised from each performance goes towards supporting local grassroots projects that work to end violence against women.

The remaining 10% goes towards supporting the V-Day Spotlight Campaign. Every year, V-Day spotlights a particular group of women that have suffered or are suffering from violence and abuse, using the campaign’s publicity and momentum to focus the world’s media to raise awareness and funds for groups that working specifically to address this. Women of Iraq, Afghan women, ‘comfort women’ and the missing or murdered women of Juarez have all been focuses of the V-Day Spotlight in previous years. In 2008, V-Day spotlights the women of New Orleans. The Katrina Warriors have suffered, and continue to suffer from, racism, economic hardship, high levels of violence, including sexual violence, and the effects of the failure of public structures to protect them.

Through promoting innovative policy and practice Zero Tolerance Trust tackle the root causes of male violence against women and children.

The Trust are inspired by a vision of the world without male violence against women and children. We use a primary prevention approach to challenging
society’s attitudes and values and the structures that sustain inequality and male violence against women & children. We want social and cultural change that eradicates gender-based violence.

The Woman’s Coalition

The Trust is one of five organisations that form the Women's Coalition in Scotland:
Zero Tolerance (www.zerotolerance.org.uk),
Scottish Women’s Aid (www.scottishwomensaid.co.uk),
Rape Crisis Scotland (www.rapecrisisscotland.org),
Engender (www.engender.org.uk)
and The Women’s Support Project (www.womenssupportproject.co.uk).