This week our CEO, Natalie, had the joy of joining the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, in London, to celebrate their 100th birthday. She writes about it here:
Without the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, Own My Life, would not have been possible. And so it was with great gratitude that I embarked on the just-under-four-hour journey from Sunderland to London. This gratitude was only increased because I had an afternoon meeting in London with Louise Bryant, Own My Life facilitator extraodinaire who has often welcomed women who do not have a course available local to them onto the online Own My Life courses she runs.
However, after getting as far as Retford, a fire on the line in Stevenage turned us back to Doncaster, with an onward train to Sheffield, to transfer again onto a London-bound train. After some intitial concerns that I wouldn’t make it to the event, I acquired some wonderful friends. First was Jennifer, who asked for my help because she was struggling to hear. Next was Joy, whose booked passenger assistance had failed to materialise. We also made friends with a woman whose name I have completely forgotten (sorry lovely woman!), and Olivia and Sashan who were on the way to see McFly at the O2. Along the way, we met others including Ben the flight attendant and Jim the American tourist. They all joined Team Train.
The start of each Own My Life session encourages participants to share something they are thankful for. In early course sessions, this can be difficult. By virtue of attending an abuse and trauma course, most women are dealing with lots of hard stuff, both from the abuser himself and from services (police, social care, health, education) who dehumanise and demand of them. Yet, as the weeks go by that weekly account of gratitude seeps into the rest of life and the unremarkable tiny joys become a tale to tell at Own My Life each week.
On the train, there was distress and difficulty. Team Train was worried about whether we’d get there and the older members were concerned about having to stand for long periods, not being able to hear the announcements, or being rushed. However, as self-appointed Team Leader (ha!), I said I thought this was an adventure, and Olivia and Shashan were keen to ensure no one was left behind. It wasn’t the journey I had planned (sorry that we missed our meeting Louise!), but I was grateful to have made new friends and been able to make the unexpectedly long journey a little more joyous.
After making sure Jennifer got to her daughter in St Pancras and Joy was safely seated on her next train, I arrived at the Sir Halley Stewart Trust centenary celebration just in time, phew! What a delight it was to be part of the event. It was wonderful to hear from Dr Duncan Strewart, the great grandson of Sir Halley, so too was learning more about the Trust’s current projects through the Chair of each of the Trust’s subcommitees.
Back in 2017, I was halfway through writing Own My Life in my (rather sparse!) spare time just as the legendary Andrew Graystone became a Sir Halley Stewart Trustee. Andrew encouraged me to apply to the Trust. With no grant writing experience nor an organisational structure, I was unsure, but he was so encouraging. I applied for three years of funding, to enable me to finish the writing in 2018, pilot and then evaluate in 2019, and then start rolling the course out in 2020.
I was blown away when the Trust agreed to fund the project, with a caveat to safeguard their investment; they required that I set up a charity to provide governance and support. This terrified me! I had always shied away from formal structures, believing them to be an unnecessary encumbrance to Doing The Work. And yet, it had to be done. I approached some good women; Sarah Moss, Sarah Lothian, Hazel Skelton and Irene Hayes and they agreed to be the founding Trustees. We then worked with the wonderful Lynn Cadman to see The Women’s Liberation Collective registered as a charity in July 2019.
My initial terror at formal structures has morphed into a deep gratitude for governance and organisational systems. Just as Team Train made it through a long and complicated journey, so too The Women’s Liberation Collective has enabled me to overcome many challenges and grow Own My Life beyond anything I thought possible. Our current Trustees; Sarah Learmonth, Ebun Babarinde, Irene Hayes, Sadia Masud and Henu Cummins are brilliant at keeping us on track, and Jo Costello and Andrew Collins have worked tirelessly alongside me to keep us moving forward.
As our recent Annual Report HERE shows, we have trained over 1,200 practitioners across the UK and Ireland, with a smattering of facilitators in the Isle of Man, Australia and Mexico (you can see where Own My Life is available HERE). Alongside launching Irish context materials and our Discovery platform (find out more HERE), we have provided over 14,500 journals for course participants. We are continually blown away by the difference Own My Life is making to women, both those attending the course after having been subjected to abuse, and the practitioners who tell us our training and resources hugely improve their ability to support women and children. Our impact is only possible through the tenacity and commitment of these practitioners and the organisations that employ them, and the courage of every single woman who does the work of learning to own her life.
Without the Sir Halley Stewart Trust investing in the project, both financially, and through the great wisdom of requiring us to become a registered charity, we would never have arrived at this point. And so, to spend an evening in the company of those who made this possible left my heart, my head and even my toes filled up with gratitude.
May we each be People of Gratitude; when the things we ask for are given to us (like funding), when the things we’d rather not have asked of us enable us to grow (like becoming a charity), and when a fire at Stevenage means we make a whole bunch of lovely friends to keep us going on the journey.
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