A WOMEN-LED community conference supported by West Yorkshire Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund

ONE VOICE is an extraordinarily diverse group of local women with lived experience of gender and cultural inequality, domestic and childhood abuse, poverty (monetary and opportunity) depression, and anxiety. Now empowered, they lead events that inspire others to believe they too can bring about change, that the power for change lies with those with lived experience.

This funding from the newly appointed West Yorkshire Mayor Tracey Brabin’s Office gave these women the opportunity to:

Devise, publish and present an action plan to bring about change in relation to Violence Against Women and Girls and lack of cultural diversity, with the issues they believe are the most important at the fore.

Using the Hear Us! Action plan as a starting point, they ran local workshops with women and girls – to raise awareness and build their confidence to start the journey of making change in their lives.

We highlighted and supported women who have experienced domestic abuse, encouraging the women to make positive changes and share their knowledge with others. This approach offered deep meaningful peer support for victims of domestic abuse. Our emotional well-being workshops brought women together to improved mental health and helped raise their confidence to attend other related workshops, seminars and attend other research projects.

Through difficult and sensitive conversations these women, many of whom are victims of ‘hate crime’, felt their experiences were validated and felt grateful to be given this opportunity to discuss their experiences in a safe supported environment.

Women from the ONE VOICE group went on to co-devise and produce a community conference, to develop ideas and ways to move forward for local women and girls. This conference involved the women themselves – speaking about their own lived experience of domestic violence and abuse. It also brought together representatives from social services, community cohesion teams, mental health teams, policy think-tanks, university researchers, WY Mayor’s team, regional women’s organisations, MPs and regional and national funders.

“Thank you for all these amazing opportunities you are presenting us with, absolutely fantastic and so exciting. My life is changing and I am finally saying ‘Yes! To positive experiences” Deborah, One Voice.

“This conference shows how important the arts can be in healing and empowering women. Not only were we able to see and share the stories of very diverse women but also the diversity of community it brought in as delegates. I am inspired!” Conference delegate.

Following on from the event, the One Voice collective took part in a creative well-being research project with Huddersfield University: how important creativity can be to improve well-being:

“It was truly and sincerely led by One Voice and their stories… it felt like a really grounded example of good practice in terms of bringing lived experience into the conversation with funders/commissioners/policy makers that should be an example to others. An absolutely amazing event – well done!” Claire Booth-Kurpnieks, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield