It’s 2023 and we enter the new year with trepidation, but also hope.
We hope that everyone had a peaceful, and fun, festive period and that you enter this new year with high expectations.
There is a feeling that the pandemic, although still a concern, has passed the stage of future lockdowns and restrictions. This we hope encourages women to return to face to face groupwork and to have confidence our services will not be cancelled or inconsistent due to the restrictions.
Wise Women however, like so many other services in Glasgow, is waiting to hear if we will be receiving funding past 31st March 2023. Although under the current cost of living crisis there are serious concerns about how Glasgow City Council will fund essential services, we are moving forward with optimism.
If we receive the funding we will continue to provide our essential workshops and courses to women. We have however listened to the changes in women’s lives since Covid and have adjusted our courses. We will now prioritise 5-week courses, as women said that 10 week courses were too big a commitment.
We continue to build on our work on street safety, Safer Steps. This will see us undertake safety tours with women in 3 areas in January and February. If you would like to take part contact Dawn on 0141 370 0739 or dawn@wisewomen.org.uk for more information. We are also continuing to work with Balfour Beatty to design new ways of supporting the building industry to consider women’s safety in their work. We believe this is essential with the upcoming structural changes to address the climate emergency. We have been encouraged by Glasgow City Council announcing it is the UK’s first Feminist City last year. This commits the council to considering women’s needs in any planning and development. We look forward to supporting the Council with their goal. Exciting times.
Glasgow Women’s Voluntary Sector Network continues to meet and will be holding an Open Space at the beginning of March, so watch out for info! They also continue to represent women’s needs at working and strategic groups in the Council. We will therefore be in touch about issues you may wish to comment on. Two online consultations will be held in 2023 and this will be added to information gathered at the Open Space events to support the Network to represent a wide range of women’s views.
Wise Women continues to host the Standing Group on Violence Against Women. In 2023 we will be pushing the information gathered for the economic review held in 2022. The review details the cost of violence against women and how Glasgow City Council is financially responding to this emergency. You can download the report from our website in the resource section.
As always we love our work with women. We really hope to offer more opportunities to meet this year and we would love to hear your ideas.
If you are a woman who wants to comment on our services or a worker who would like to get more information about our services contact us on 0141 370 0739 or email info@wisewomen.org.uk.
We look forward to seeing you in 2023. Here’s to a safe, caring and mostly fun 2023!!
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