Broxtowe Women’s Project aims to help women who have experienced domestic violence, the symbol of domestic violence awareness is the white ribbon | Photo Credit: Unsplash: Becca Tapert
Broxtowe Women’s Project, in Nottingham, helps women recover from the trauma of domestic violence. Lily Smith talks to Chris Harris about what this involves
How did you first get involved with Broxtowe Women’s Project?
My background is as a qualified nurse, I’ve always been in ‘caring’ organisations. The Partnership manager role is a five-year lottery funded project and the idea is for me to use my skills to raise awareness and to fundraise. They’re my two main aims.
My work is not directly frontline crisis support with the women and their families, although I work very closely with them, and as part of that, I do get to hear their stories if they choose to tell me.
What is a typical day for you?
There isn’t really a typical day and that’s why I like it. My job flexes from doing a lot of creative work with the women – which includes forming our exhibitions where women display their artwork – or bringing in speakers to do workshops. To then sitting in strategic meetings with businesses who could be possible fundraisers. It goes from very corporate, in a suit negotiating, to in an apron doing support work. It’s very varied.
What is the main aim of the creative work you do with the women at BWP?
The creative work, whether its poetry, artwork, writing or photography, we exhibit for the public - most recently at the Nottingham Galleries of Justice. The aim of the exhibitions is to a) make a difference to the women here and b) to raise awareness with the wider public. There are lots of myths and stereotypes surrounding domestic abuse – about who experiences abuse and the exhibitions aim to move away from that and help people realise that abuse can happen to anyone.
For me, the exhibitions are a good way to help these women move forwards, build their confidence and give them recognition for what they’ve been through so people are more aware and sensitive. We have a lady who is a photographer and she stopped doing photography because her abusive partner didn’t want her to and she lost all confidence in her work. Her photography being displayed at the exhibition has rebuilt her confidence because she gets validation that her work is worth seeing – people want to see it and admire it.
The key aim would be enabling not just the women but also the public to recognise that these women are more than what’s happened to them.
Definitely. If you’ve never worked with people who have experienced abuse of any form, you don’t understand the impact that sharing their trauma has on them. Some journalists use language that some of our women would find offensive. Words like victim or even survivor, like any label, comes with a stigma that these women don’t identify with.
For us, it’s about taking this negative experience but finding a positive way to move forward. At our recent exhibition, one of our women, Eloise*, produced a beautiful piece where she made a dress from newspaper clippings and headlines about domestic abuse that she found offensive. She has a saying that is “I’m not a victim, I’m not a survivor, I’ve got a name and my name is Eloise.” And she’s absolutely right.
Your job must be really challenging at times, what motivates you?
It is and I’m not completely hardened to it. There are days when I go home and cry. The small things motivate me. For example, this morning, two of our women who had never met before, were chatting happily about planting potatoes. That’s when I know I’m making a difference because they’re beginning to talk about ‘normal’ things and have ‘normal’ conversations.
You can’t work with people that have experienced abuse and expect dramatic changes quickly – that isn’t realistic. You can get them out of danger but the long-term effects can take years to overcome. My motivation comes from helping these women recover and making a genuine difference to their lives going forward.
That feeds into the other side of my job - if I can go into big organisations and talk to their staff about how they can support women better, then the difference that can make will be huge.
You have to remember it’s not all about bad days and bad stories. There’s a lot of good and that motivates me.
What’s coming up soon that people could get involved in?
It’s important to focus on fundraising, which picks up more in the summer, because the money we raise can go directly to a woman in crisis – someone who’s fled and needs bedsheets and we can get her those.
That doesn’t mean the support side of my job stops. That’s constantly ongoing. We’re planning four exhibitions this year – one that we’re planning to go in the DH Lawrence Museum. We’re also working with the Nottingham Poetry Festival. It’s important to keep up the momentum with fundraising and support.
To support BWP or find out more visit: https://broxtowewomensproject.org.uk/
Comments