Aspire Awarded National Lottery Reaching Communities Funding
In late 2021 Aspire women were thrilled to be awarded £100,000 via the North East and Cumbria region Reaching Communities Fund, a National Lottery fund. The funding will go towards continuing the hugely successful and award-winning Supporting Sisters programme. Supporting Sisters, which Aspire has been running for five years, is Aspire’s programme for supporting women’s health and wellbeing and includes a structured volunteer programme, as well as specialist services around suicide and self-harm, mental health and domestic violence and abuse.
The new funding will support Aspire to continue to develop and deliver peer led services. These enable the training of more women to become ‘Supporting Sisters’ who facilitate many Aspire services, including the one-to-one confidential listening service, and our support and social groups essential to reducing loneliness and isolation within the community. Supporting Sisters are also working to support women struggling financially with services such as the women-only Credit Union, signposting & financial advice, including scam awareness, and support packs of household & store cupboard essentials.
Aspire Learning, Support and Wellbeing exists to enable women to live the lives they want to live, promoting self-care and confidence building and there has been a significant increase in demand for support services across the women’s sector which this funding will help Aspire address. New services planned to assist Aspire to increase our capacity to support women include introducing a mentoring system for Aspire volunteers whereby they receive peer support. Aspire will also continue to develop pathways for women to strengthen their personal development through volunteering and learning.
As this funding will support all elements of the organisation over a sustained period, securing the sustainability and growth of the Supporting Sisters programme. It will allow Aspire to continue to have a positive impact on the physical, mental health and wellbeing of women, create a sense of belonging and resilience for women a long time to come.
“Aspire works with women from all walks of life many who are impacted by trauma. These services provide a trauma-informed, personalised, holistic response to women and they are co-produced to ensure we are listening to what women want and need.
The Supporting Sister volunteers have received several awards over the years for the impact they have on women, and the services have recently been recognised and highly commended in the National Self Care Innovation awards.
Thanks to the National Lottery Community funding we are delighted to be able to continue this vital gender-sensitive work providing these essential support and wellbeing services.””