Birthdays are strange things for charities like us.
On one hand, we’re proud of the work we’ve done, and of how long we’ve lasted.
We’re proud of the women who laid the first foundations of RISE, as the Women’s Refuge project back in 1994 and of the women who have built on those foundations over the last thirty years.
We celebrate our incredible teams, past and present – our volunteers, supporting everything from the Helpline to the 8K Run for Women, our Board, all volunteers, our staff team, our leadership.
We thank all those organisations that have worked with us over the years – from Zuzana of Z-energy warming up the 8K runners every year to the hundreds of organisations who have donated Christmas and Easter gifts, household items and prizes for competitions and events, to Alcampo Lounge who ran events supporting us last month. They say it takes a village to raise a child – it also takes a community to stand against abuse, and we know you have our back. Thank you.
Most of all we celebrate the incredible women, children and LGBT people who have found immense courage inside themselves, to use our services to change their lives for the better. There is no work like our work for seeing people find themselves, grow into themselves, and into safety. Every day, we know we make a difference, and every day we are proud of that.
But as an organisation that holds a vision of a world free from domestic abuse and violence, it’s hard to celebrate the fact that we are still so needed. We truly do believe that such a world is possible but we have to acknowledge that we are not much closer to it than we were thirty years ago.
Over the last thirty years, records suggest that we’ve supported an average of 1500 people each year, a total of around 45,000 people – that's equivalent to half the population of the Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven constituency. Global statistics tell us that one in three women has or will experience abuse. We believe that the reality is higher, that most abuse goes under reported. One woman experiencing abuse is one too many. 45,000 is 45,000 too many.
We *will* be celebrating our birthday this year. There *will* be cake, and there *will* be candles. But as we do, we’ll be wishing wholeheartedly that we didn’t need to be here. Imagine that world we have a vision of – where all the effort and energy we and other organisations like us (not to mention the survivors we work with) put into dealing with domestic abuse and violence can be directed towards curiosity, adventure, and new things, rather than dealing with the mess left by old things.
We’re working toward the day when no-one is knocking on our door, but until then, for as long as survivors need us, we’ll be here.
We couldn’t do this without your support. Thanks for being with us.
