Project: Protect a woman
Location: Australia
Women’s Community Shelters (WCS) puts women and children at the centre of everything they do. WCS works with communities to establish new shelters, which provide short term emergency accommodation and support in a safe environment that enables homeless women to rebuild self-esteem and achieve control and fulfilment of their lives.
On the 22nd of February 2023, our CEO and Founder, Jeremy Meltzer, spoke with WCS OAM & CEO, Annabelle Daniel, in our Impact Leaders Series webinar on the unmet demand for crisis accommodation for women who are homeless.
More than one in two women across Australia who seek a bed in a crisis shelter are turned away every night, mostly due to a lack of space. And these are just the ones who find out they can ask for a safe place to go.
Key insights
Is inequality the foundation that leads to domestic and family violence?
Yeah, I think it absolutely is. And I think it’s been that way since time immemorial. I mean, women have always been the ones who carry the lion’s share of domestic work, of child rearing, of caring for elderly and family members and giving it their time in a volunteer capacity and in a way that really isn’t valued by you know, what you might say, a market driven society.
You know, it’s this whole stream of care work and looking after others that just goes uncounted. And that’s been built in forever. I think there’s lots of elements that lead into this and fundamentally disrespect for women and a lack of acknowledgement of that contribution has some very deep roots in ultimately causing violence against women.
Do you believe violence against women could become a thing of the past?
I think it absolutely could be. I’m an optimist. Even after even after years of working in the space, I’m an optimist about the fact that this is actually a wicked social problem that we can solve. Will it take a lot of concerted effort? Absolutely. And I think we’re starting to have the conversation, certainly in Australia, that we need to have about what it takes to shift those attitudes and to change things.
But I also think we need to be under no illusions that we can never consider this work done once and for all. There will always be work to be done. There will always be elements of inequality. There will always be people who seek to take advantage of others to fulfil their own needs or to seek to use others rather than treat them with respect. So we are going to have to have an ongoing project, so to speak. We can see that if we don’t keep this project moving forward it’s very easy for things to slip back.
What are the impacts of the funds raised for Women’s Community Shelters through the i=Change platform?
First and foremost, that amount of money supports our head office hub for a whole year to enable us to work with those new communities to establish new shelters. So what that really does is gives us that all important capacity to get out there and to be able to say yes to the communities that approach us for help.
$1.3 million funds our entire shelter network with our contribution to their costs for a whole year – that is 40, 000 safe bed nights for women and children. So the way that businesses give back through the i=Change platform, it only takes a couple of minutes, but boy, oh boy, it makes an extraordinary difference for Women’s Community Shelters and the women and children that we support in our shelters.
“$50 buys a night of safety for a woman and her family. And that is often the key turning point. That is the first step in a new life, and that can’t be underestimated”
Be the change today.
