Raising money to keep services open - the Heba example

In June 2010, more than 30 women walked 10km along the Thames, from WRC member Heba in the East End to Buckingham Palace, and raised over £4000 to help keep Heba’s classes open while they looked for funding to replace what was lost in the recession.

Everyone had a great day and year later Heba is still here! After the success of last year’s walk they have decided to make it an annual thing. This year their aim is to double the efforts and raise £8000 towards a volunteering project.

Heba Women’s Project is well known and loved in the community as a hub where immigrant women can come to learn, meet new people and increase their confidence. Heba offers accredited classes in English, sewing and computing and finds different ways to help depending on the needs of each woman.

One woman describes the 2010 walk:

“I remember Heba women's walk . We raised the Heba flag made by our own hands.

I remember the streets from East London to Buckingham Palace. Crossing Tower Bridge, we saw the Tower of London and I remembered all the stories I had learnt at Heba about the people who built it and were imprisoned there. I remembered Queen Elisabeth when I saw the Tower's gates and again when we passed Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. I remembered the entire nation who worked very hard to get that civilisation and that freedom that we are blessed with.

I do believe that we can work like them and can make a change and leave our finger print. I found that at Heba. Heba is like jewellery on my hands that I don’t want to lose. Heba helps lots of women find their missing jewels.

Other women today are in need of someone to take their hand. They are suffering in silence. Their lives can change if we don't forget them.”

Another woman explains why she is going to walk 10km for Heba in 2011:

“I came to the UK because of my husband. I had been a teacher in my country and I wanted to restart my teaching career here. I just wanted to be useful in this country and not let my skills go to waste but first I needed to learn English. I looked for English classes everywhere but there are so many restrictions on who can have free classes and I didn’t have any money. Finally, I enrolled in a beginner class. It was much too easy, but I was desperate to do something with my time.

Luckily, a woman in the class told me about Heba, that there was a wider range of classes there, for everyone. I went along and was put in a class at my level and given help with my computer skills too. But it didn’t stop there. Through my teachers, I found out about so many other courses that I had access to and was able to start three volunteer placements in the local area. This gave me valuable experience, motivation, and the feeling that I was finally able to give something to the community. Best of all, one of the placements was as a teaching assistant in a primary school. Through this placement, I gained my Level 2 childcare NVQ and was taken on in an official capacity. I am now working as a full time teaching assistant and I love the job.

If it hadn’t been for Heba, there is no way I would be in this position today.”

If you want to join the Heba Women's Project's 10km River Walk on Sunday 19th June 2011 at 2pm contact Anne on 07960 124 262 or anne@heba.org.uk or Anne or Afia on 0207 377 0400.

If you want to find out more about how Heba organised the walk and about other ways that you can fundraise to support your organisation and services see the sustainable fundraising pages on the WRC website.

Facing Our Future - WRC conference a success!

After months of planning, WRC's annual conference for 2010 kicked off on 7th December at Cass Business School in central London - and a great day it was!

The aim of the day was to provide attendees with both valuable information on the current political and economic situation of the women's sector and to provide concrete advice on how women's organisations can best position themselves in the current environment.

To that end, we kicked the day off with some speed networking, to allow the 100 or so women present to meet others from within the sector, before moving to our first panel of the day on the future of the women's sector, where panellists from Navca, the Ashiana network, North East Women's Network and the EHRC spelled out what the next year has in store for the sector and what women working in the sector must do to ensure sustainability.

Following an excellent presentation by Belinda Pratten of NCVO on the Big Society, and what it means for the women's sector, attendees broke into groups for the first session of 'surgeries', on social media, social enterprise and partnerships, with experts from each topic available. The surgeries were a great success, as people got to grips with the big questions behind the topics, and we can't thank enough those who took the time to come and take part in them despite a hectic pre-Christmas schedule!

After lunch and another round of surgeries, WRC's National Equality Partnership (NEP) took to the stage for a one hour panel discussion on equalities and how women's organisations can best diversify. The audience were particularly interested to hear from Camilla Thrush, equality and inclusion manager for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) on how the Olympics had tackled the challenge of ensuring diversity on all levels of work on the games , although she joked that the role didn't mean she could get any Olympics tickets!

It quickly became apparent throughout the day that direct action was where women's organisations want to be. Tired of funding concerns, lack of support and continued gender disparity, throughout the day panellists, speakers and attendees spoke of the need to make the message clear to all - the women's sector must be supported in order for it to continue its invaluable work in helping women across the UK.

Our keynote speaker, journalist and author Bea Campbell, put it best at the end in her inspiring speech to the audience, where she told women present it was not enough for them to be angry about the situation of women in this country.

"You have to be dangerous!" she said, sparking applause from those present.

At the close of the conference and after a successful AGM in which two of our organisation's new trustees were successfully sworn in and we bid a fond farewell to both our chair, Helen Rice, and our treasurer, Lakshmi Raja-Rayan, the attendees spilled out into the main milling area of Cass Business school for drinks, canapes and a rousing performance by all female drumming troupe Foroyaa.


WRC would like to thank everyone who took the time to attend the event or to take part for their support on the day. The event was a great success, and while at times there were sobering reminders of the economic, political and social challenges ahead for the sector, we hope here at WRC that the day gave all those present some grounding in how best to help their organisation face the the future.

After all, that is what WRC is here for!

London Irish Women's Health Day

Stoke Newington’s Church Street has been the home of the London Irish Women’s Centre for almost 30 years and last week, I (Skye Sandhu) went along there to see what was happening for their health day.

London Irish Women's Network provides advice & information on a wide range of issues, including housing, benefits, domestic violence.

Catching up with Caroline from the centre, she described that the primary reason for the awareness, information and advice day was much needed because studies published have shown that joint with Bangladeshi men, Irish (men, women and children) are the ethnicity with the worst health records in the UK. The target audience for the event: mainly elderly women and mothers with young children.

It was great to see they had everything covered from free goodie bags, massages, advisors, health checks and crèche on board, so that women could really engage on their health.

It was a quiet start because of the wet weather conditions but gradually picked up to everyone’s delight! While there, I caught up with Barry from the Stroke Association and Sophia from Hackney Stop Falls Network who were some of the stall holders present and got to hear about the advocacy and support they provide in the Hackney community for elderly women.

Personally for me it was good to go and visit one of our members face to face to see and feed back on the great work they do for the community, so if you have an event or open day- let us know so that we can come to you!

Women's organisations get tweeting!

Well, I've been away for a few weeks and have only just caught up with all our various communications. I've been particularly pleased to see more women's organisations embracing Twitter, Facebook and blogs. You can really see the difference in the way they can reach out to their supporters and new audiences - spreading campaign messages as well as interacting and responding to people's comments, concerns and input.

In the last week, Newham Action Against Domestic Violence (@NAADV) has tweeted about their new service for young people (would have been even better with a weblink for people to follow). Women's Aid got namechecked in a tweet from Sarah Brown (@SarahBrown10). If they'd retweeted it (twitter-speak for forwarding a post), their supporters would have known about this high-profile fan too. And I've been chatting on Twitter to @Bell_Bajao, an Indian organisation with an incredibly interactive website, campaigning to end domestic violence.

Do you know any other women's organisations using these or other online tools really well? Post in comments below or send me a tweet (@whywomen)!

A busy week at WRC

Phew! Last week was a busy one for WRC, with the evening launch of our new research followed by a full-day conference.

On Monday evening, the WRC team travelled to Westminster, where we welcomed guests from across the women’s sector, the wider voluntary sector, MPs and representatives from the UN. The purpose of the event was to launch our new research, Not just bread, but roses, too, which maps the women’s sector across England, with an emphasis on funding to the sector (or lack of it). We heard from Dubravka Siminovic (former chair of CEDAW) and Dr Nicola Brewer (chief executive EHRC), who drove home the importance of funding to the sector, especially with regard to the obligations set out by CEDAW.

As if all that excitement wasn’t enough, on Tuesday, we welcomed over 100 delegates (in partnership with EHRC) to the Human Rights Action Centre, where we enjoyed a day packed full of opportunities to hear from experts on CEDAW, participate in workshops and to make a start on women’s sector strategy for CEDAW 2011. There’s a full report of the conference on our website, along with links to some the organisations that attended and information on further action. The sheer numbers and enthusiasm at the conference made it a truly inspiring (if exhausting) experience!

If you missed out on these events, we got pretty snap happy, so why not take a look at our photos?

Together we’re seizing the opportunities of CEDAW!

WRC joins the Million Women Rise march

The drums, the whistles, the chanting, the sea of red banners... Women marching down the centre of Oxford Street on a busy Saturday afternoon to mark International Women's Day... Bemused (and sometimes supportive) shoppers and workers looking on - including a standing ovation from the Toni & Guy hairdressers... Women's organisations coming together in solidarity from across the country... Together we can end male violence against women...

The sun shone on this year's Million Women Rise march and the atmosphere reflected that - friendly, together, positive - despite the serious messages and placards. There was a real sense of reclaiming space from the shoppers, mannequins and advertising slogans as we marched through Oxford Street and Regent Street.

The atmosphere became more sombre at the rally following the march, where people gathered to listen to inspiring and moving speakers. Some told incredibly moving tales of survival and recovery, others read messages of solidarity from across the world, still others recounted the horrific violations of women taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sri Lanka.

Anna from Object spoke about their actions to combat the increasing objectification of women, a speaker from the Women's Institute spoke about domestic violence and the fact that rural women often bear the brunt of the postcode lottery in violence services, and Ruth Bashall spoke about the abuses perpetrated against disabled women worldwide and the solidarity and strength they provide to each other. All the speeches were translated by the indefatigable sign language interpreter.

For a great sense of the march, see this fantastic video by warriorgrrl. See our pictures here and some other fantastic pictures by Jess McCabe here.

One woman. One body. One song. One love.

A brief guide to Twitter for women's organisations

There’s been a lot of noise in the media about Twitter recently and you could get the impression that it’s just for self-promoting celebrities. But what is less reported is how useful it can be for charities and campaigns. WRC has been using Twitter since October 2008 and we (well, I) love it and think it could be a great tool for other women’s organisations.

From a very personal perspective, I like Twitter because people only get your updates if they’re actually interested in hearing from you. If they don’t find you interesting, they won’t follow you (or not for long). You can send out quick notices, let people know about interesting news, events or comments – all without cluttering up people’s inboxes. And you make contact with (and build relationships with) people you didn’t even know existed. It breaks down institutional barriers and opens up your organisation to supporters, potential supporters, peers and even policymakers.

What else can you do?

• ask your network for help
• if you’re lucky, they’ll ask their networks to help you too
• promote campaign actions or other work
  
• get a dog a new home (or whatever your core activity is)
• get instant feedback
• engage with MPs, councillors etc
• learn from your peers
• add quick updates to your website or blog (you should see our twitter updates on this blog)
• even 'silly' Twitter actions can have a big impact - see Amnesty's snowmen for human rights!
  

How to get started
Have a look at this ‘Twitter in plain English’ video (although it mostly explains Twitter’s benefits to individuals rather than organisations) and then this presentation. Then sign up to Twitter and find some people to follow (i.e. receive their updates). One way is to follow me, then see who I follow and if you’re interested in them, follow them too. There’s a list of charities on Twitter here, or try some US women’s organisations to see what they’re doing.

One last thing... I asked my 'followers' if they had any tips for women's organisations new to Twitter and here are some I received...

• have a clear purpose or theme
• talk to people (be a real human being)
• be a good citizen

There’s so much more to say, but I hope this gives you a taste. As Christine Burns pointed out to me, Twitter encourages brevity, but if you want to know more, tweet me!

Hackney funding seminar

Earlier today, the development team (and one policy team member!) found themselves in Hackney for the second in a series of local funding seminars which form part of WRC’s Building Futures project. The audience consisted of women from a number of organisations, from Hackney and the surrounding boroughs, who were keen to find out about the various options for sustainable funding.

The first speaker was Eve Oldham, commissioner for Older People’s Services in Hackney, who explained how the commissioning process can work for the voluntary sector and gave a step-by-step guide to the process, from invitation to tender through the to the awarding of the contract. Next was Pippa Judd, Counselling Services Manager at the Threshold project in Brighton. Pippa gave an insight into the challenges of partnership working, from her experience of having to merge with a larger, generic organisation due to loss of funding.

After a quick tea break, we heard from Em Ekong, director of Urban Inclusion, who talked about social enterprise and how it can work for the women’s sector. Em emphasised the importance of thinking creatively when it comes to thinking of possible income generation ideas and that while commercialisation is not appropriate for all organisations, it certainly is something which is worth considering. Finally, WRC’s Supriya Horn gave a short introduction to the world of fundraising from individuals and emphasised that this is a source of funding which is currently underused by the women’s sector. The formal presentations were followed by informal roundtable sessions with the speakers, where the women attending got to ask their own questions and network with one another.

All in all it was a very successful and inspiring morning, which one delegate described as “brilliant and loaded with info!”. Look out for details of our next funding seminar in Tower Hamlets on Friday 13th March!