Campaign #11 – SAHWR

Well hello March! The new month’s got us excited – and not just for Pancake Day. It’s International Women’s Day, and what better way to celebrate than by launching our next campaign!

For campaign #11, we’ve partnered up with St. Albans and Hertsmere Women’s Refuge.

What kind of work does SAHWR do and how do they help?

St Albans and Hertsmere Women’s Refuge aims to provide a safe comfortable, conflict free environment for women and women with children who are suffering domestic abuse. They give advice and support on available options so as to enable a woman to make informed choices, feel more confident and take control of her and her children’s lives and future. The Refuge offers just that, a refuge from abuse; a place of safety. 

The need for a women’s refuge in St Albans was identified in 1978, but it took a further 4 years of campaigning until a suitable 4 bedroom council property was found in May 1982. By September 1982 the house had been decorated and was ready to open as St Albans Women’s Refuge. Within 7 months, 22 women and 45 children had been referred to the Refuge by Social Services, the Samaritans, the Police and other refuges.

Today the Refuge is able to house 22 women and 44 children. St Albans City and District Council still remains a contributor to the upkeep of the refuge along with Hertsmere Borough Council, Hertfordshire County Council and the Government’s Supporting People Programme. The Refuge is still reliant on the generous donations of companies, local churches, organisations, groups and individuals to support the work within the Refuge.

 

How to donate

You can find all the ways to donate listed here. If you aren’t able to get donations to us personally, you can send them to us directly via  Freda (all products are eco-friendly and organic) or our Amazon wish list (which generally avoids postage fees)!

If you would like to donate in person or via post (with your own selection of products), please get in touch and we will do our best to arrange this!

We are also crowdfunding for monetary donations, which will be given straight to SAHWR once the campaign closes.

If you aren’t able to donate this time, we would still love it if you could spread the word about our campaign to your family and friends!

 

And now for something completely different…

Sophie feels physically sick at the omitted apostrophe – apologies

As well as our normal donation drive, very excitingly we are hosting our first ever ABGC Fun Quiz on April 27th to raise even more donations! Wonderful Quizmaster Jeff Owen got in touch with us last year and generously offered us his quiztastic services: for more information about the quiz, check out our FB event here [link].

 

 

Thanks for all your continued generosity and support,

~ Sophie