In 2018, we awarded a grant of £250,000 towards the purchase and extension of a refuge in Berkshire.

Organisation

Berkshire Women’s Aid (BWA) is a specialist domestic abuse service providing a wide range of services and programmes to deal with the immediate needs of victims, survivors and their children, and to intervene as early as possible to stop abuse from happening. Services include confidential support, information, outreach services and refuge accommodation.

The Orchard capital project

BWA had leased one of their refuges, Orchard, for over 35 years and, as the lease expiry date approached, they had the opportunity to purchase the property. At the same time, another refuge they leased was in poor condition and was no longer considered to be suitable accommodation for their service users. BWA decided to purchase and extend Orchard and developed their capital project with the support of Reading Rotary Community Project. BWA had raised £962,000 of the £1.4mil required to purchase and extend the project at the time of their application. A large grant of £250,000 was awarded. The large grant was in part, a recognition of the fact that the number of refuges in England has been steadily decreasing, and three-quarters of local authorities with responsibility for providing refuges have cut their funding since 2010.