Trees are twinkling under lights and tinsel. Turkey dinners are being planned and prepped. Family and friends are gathering for the holiday festivities.
Unfortunately, Christmas may not be as wonderful if you are one of the estimated 1.3 million women affected by domestic abuse in the last twelve months. Domestic abuse doesn’t stop just because it is Christmas. For those recovering from the trauma of abuse, it can be a dark and difficult time.
Women staying at The Haven often worry about how they will buy gifts for their child, having fled their own homes with nothing, and children can often feel sad that their Christmas looks very different to that of their classmates at school. For many of the families at The Haven, it is the first Christmas they have spent away from their home and family; making it even more difficult.
At The Haven we try to provide an authentic Christmas experience for the women and children we support. At each of our refuges we create a magical grotto, where Mum’s and children can come to choose gifts to take away and wrap for one another. We encourage lots of festive activities too; from Santa visits, to cookie making.
We also like to provide Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. The most important part is that Mum’s and children have the opportunity to spend quality time together, making happy memories over the festive period as they move forward into a life free from abuse.
On most women’s Christmas list are the common things like perfume or pyjamas but for the women we support their list is often very different; they hope for safety and a new start. It’s something that many are looking for as we start a new decade, but it is particularly important for women and children who have been affected by domestic abuse. The Haven every year tries to make Christmas feel special and magical to every woman and child that asks us for help.
This Christmas is even more poignant; as we move into a new decade, we start to think about what we want from the future. Women and children in The Haven want a future free from domestic abuse and the trauma they have experienced. So, this Christmas as you tuck into your dinner and pull crackers laughing at the terrible jokes with your family and friends – please take a moment to think about the women and children settling in for a Christmas in refuge.
The Haven takes over 1000 helpline calls every month. Just £2 cover the cost of each call from a woman and her children in dire need. This Christmas, can you spare £2 to help ensure support is available for those who’s festive period may not look as bright?
Donate here www.havenrefuge.org.uk/donate-to-the-haven
It’s like that school assembly staple, the parable of the blind-folded men and the elephant: if you asked my counterparts in Ethiopia or South Sudan what Amref does, their answers would bear little resemblance to each other’s, or my own. None of us would be wrong – but you’d need them all to see the truth.
We started by creating a taskforce from across Canada, Kenya, the Netherlands, Tanzania, and the UK – all with the shared goal of establishing a global policy on image consent and a set of practical tools for implementation. At each stage we took our drafts back to a bigger working group representing every Amref office. Once we had achieved broad agreement as a group, we took it to senior management at global level.
Like many things, it all comes back to relationships: between NGO and community members, between photographer and subject. At Amref, we’re lucky to have strong relationships with the communities we work with; many of them built and maintained over several decades. Whilst these relationships don’t allow us to ever assume consent, they do enable us to have frank and open conversations.
Great Charity Speakers 