We exist to end the harm done through male violence against women and girls. Our aim is to work to prevent violence and abuse as well as providing services to meet the needs of survivors, particularly women and girls. Our work is holistic and empowering, working alongside survivors to achieve independent lives free from abuse.
Our herstory starts in the 1970s, with our roots grounded in the women’s movement, not long after the first women’s liberation march was held in London in 1971. We grew from small women’s aid organisations set up in London and from the work of those feminist pioneers. Our current structure evolved following the merger of Camden, Enfield and Islington Women’s Aid in 2007 (Solas Anois, the Irish women’s refuge, had merged with Camden Women’s Aid in 2005). Lambeth Women’s Aid joined us in 2011, Barnet Domestic Violence Support Service and Haringey Refuges in 2012 when we also began working in Southwark, expanding our South London presence. In 2016, we began running services in Waltham Forest, followed by Bexley in 2019 and Tower Hamlets in 2021.
For the financial year 2020/21, total incoming resources grew by 40% (from £11.5m to £16.2m). This was primarily due to new contracts and additional funding secured during the year across all our services and our Emergency Accommodation project during the pandemic. The trend continues in the current year and we remain in a financially robust position.
With increased demand since the first lockdown stretching resources, we must reach more women caught in the domestic abuse pandemic, preventing homelessness and addressing the mental health crisis. We have supported 29,205 women, children, young people and men across all of our services in the past 12 months. Being able to touch the lives of so many, be it in our core support services or through our prevention work, means that we have been able to live up to our vision to support more survivors, and at the same time, use the power of education and training to work towards ending violence.
