Women's Health Advocacy Network

INTRODUCTION:

 

This is a yearly reflection of WHANS activities for 2024. This reflection outlines WHANS previous activities and outcomes, current projects, partnerships and undertakings, future projects.

 

1, OUR PROGECTS: PREVIOUS, CURRENT AND ONGOING

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• WHAN has been involved in supporting/Partnering other organisations and their leaders in roles to provide effective services in supporting the community, identifying and addressing other areas of needs. Organisations such as “CAD-HR,  “Family united, “Portal-Fi-Allah, “La Fraternite UK, “Women of Grace and MARUCCA Childminding Association in supporting marginalised women to gain access to education and job opportunities.

 

• Our initiative and collaboration with other implementing organisations to set-up community safety net for our destitute elderly with no recourse (a weekly financial support) incentive has proven very important based on the impact on the vulnerable beneficiaries whose lives have changed immensely.  We are searching for more funding to increase capacity and reach out to more vulnerable elderly/frail individual who are in dire need of this services.

 

• Research is a vital component of our (WHAN Charity) work and therefore has been involved in research with some organisations like CSA (Centre of Expertise for Child Sexual Abuse), UCL Hospital (Department for Risk and Disaster Reduction) and with students from different Universities across UK. Our involvement in this research is to help WHAN charity to highlight the scale and nature of the problems affecting the Migrant/marginalised communities in UK who are struggling to access main-stream support.

 

• Our service provision is ongoing with lots of work in identifying the needs and services to address the holistic health needs of our beneficiaries. WHAN Charity working partnership with CAD-HR to implement the COMMUNITY HEALTH and LAW CENTRE has been the highlight of 2024 for Women’s Health Advocacy Network being the pioneer for this project which has been a great success in addressing health inequality for migrants.  The CHLC does not only help address the needs of the marginalised communities in Lond/UK but also makes people feel human. It’s open great doors of opportunities for other organisation to have a platform to implement their individualised services in a collaborative setting by sharing space and resources. Our vulnerable marginalised communities finally have a centre they can walked in and get their health needs addressed by professional who understands their health needs and barriers (cultural, language and barriers to support). We (WHAN) are working hard to reach out to more services in light of addressing the holistic needs of our beneficiaries. Our services are tailored to enabled individual’s not just one-off support therefore collaboration is paramount for the charity.

 

These are some of the activities WHAN has been involved in 2024:

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1. To provide ongoing services for our beneficiaries in advocating the needs of victims/survivors of sexual trauma through- Providing personal and professional emotional support to women/ families, referring to available services to address health needs, Trauma journey support and support for mental health issues impacting on their existing trauma e.g immigration, homelessness, child exclusion, lack of access to services etc.

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2. Involved in Research in raising awareness of the needs of the BAME communities in London/UK.

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3. More Collaboration and Partnership-to help address the holistic needs of our beneficiaries.

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4. Providing mentorship for both individuals, organisation and their leaders

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5. The implementation of the Community Health and Law Centre CIC addressing health in equalities for the BAME communities.

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6. Implementation of the Social Safety -Net for our elderly destitute with no recourse to public fund to access financial support and other benefits.

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7. Ongoing support for our 20 marginalised women through the childminding programme

 

2,       PARTNERSHIP:

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• We have recently been accepted by the Integrated Care System/Board of Southeast London in partnership of improving the health of BAME community in Southwark through Community Southwark. We are currently in the stage of Co-Designing of the available fund with ICB/S to ensure fairness and effective outcome to the use of the resources.

 

• I am proud and extremely happy to announce the successful completion of Level 2 child-care course for our 20 marginalised women WHAN Charity has been supporting for the past nine months. Marucca Association is a project that empowers marginalised community women through childminding training. WHAN’s work with these women is still ongoing as for us it’s about enabling individuals. Our next stage is to help them registered their business, meet all legal requirement leading to employment.

 

• I am happy to say that our collaboration with the Centre of Expertise for Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), has enabled me (Founder/WHAN Charity) to become a Practice Lead Practitioner in modifying and improving services across London/UK for child sexual abuse and adult survivors of child sexual abuse through One-year training project funded by Home Office (£15.000) per individual lead.

 

3, FUTURE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:

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• WHAN Charity started the year 2024 being homeless which impacted our services greatly due to the complex nature of our activities. There was a lot of people on waiting list who are in desperate need of our services. The opportunity of acquiring Mill Street space through Community Southwark from 03/24-06/2024 and the space at (Bedford Row, Holborn) from Integratespace between 06/24-12/24 helped us to reach out and support more service users in the ideal environment thus making impact.                                                                          

• We are currently homeless again and therefore has put on hold all new referrals to the centre. It is extremely challenging to provide our services in isolation in addition to lack of resource.

 

• It is important to have a workspace as the women we provide our services to needs a safe, comfortable and private space to be able to talk about their trauma. WHAN aims to have a workspace that will help us provide our valuable services without interruption.

 

• We have recently from 09/24 secure a small funding for some of our project from Funding Differently and Southwark Charity etc. This funding has helped us greatly with our expenses for volunteers and beneficiaries. Also helped us reach out to many women and girls in need. The impact through these funding has been immense. Due to the increase in cases and operational cost, WHAN is seeking sustainability funding to help us provide more services.

 

 

• It is a struggle to get and maintain volunteers due to lack of resources.  We have recently uploaded an online volunteer application form and job description for a few roles. We are looking for volunteers with experience in working with vulnerable people to help us with the growing number of cases we have each week.  

 

Overall, I feel so proud as the Founder/CEO WHAN Charity after reflecting on the above and the level of recognition within 3 years of implementation of our services despite the challenges in all aspect. Sustainability funding and office Space is still the biggest challenge for us as it is limiting our services significantly. I am therefore asking for help to enabled WHAN Charity to function efficiently and make more impact. Despite the challenges, we are still fully committed in helping women and girls in need that has been through gender-based violence or at risk of becoming a victim. We have seen the evidence of WHAN making an impact and changing lives daily with the services we provide through our success stories and feedback.

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Adama Nyama Bah

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Founder/Director

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