Once a woman is past the immediate 'survival' period, she needs to be supported and mobilised towards emotional empowerment, economic self-sufficiency and confidence to re-integrate into a community. This is what our empowerment services are all about. These services span a broad spectrum and we are continually adding new services as funding becomes available.
Currently we offer the following services:
Support groups
Our weekly self-help support groups bring women and children together. Women are able to share their weekly experiences and offer each other advice and support. These groups are very
successful and prove to be an effective tool in helping women affected by domestic abuse deal with the emotional trauma. The support groups also provide much needed down time. Here women are
able to discuss current issues, share some laughter and make new friends. We also do some fun activities with summer trips to the seaside and theme parks. We currently run the following
support groups:
- Chand Suraj (moon & stars) is for women over the age of 50.
- Tammana (desire) is a support group for women with children.
- Ayina (mirror) is aimed at young girls aged 8-16 years. It is an after-school group and in summer holidays we offer play schemes. We provide transport.
- Ambaar-Akaash (golden sky) is a drop-in session for all our women. Held on the first Wednesday of each month it offers support on a wide range of issues that may be of concern such as parenting issues, child contact, education and financial issues.
- We also have a new after-school support group for boys aged 8 - 16 years.
Structured support is also offered at these support groups through regular self-empowerment and training workshops.
Self-development specialist sessions
Research at Aanchal has shown that in order for women to have inner confidence and self-pride, they need to break through the mental blocks that result from years of abuse and dependency.
Our focused, experiential and therapeutic three-day programmes are offered in a nurturing and safe environment and help women to overcome emotional barriers or confront difficult issues.
Women leave these sessions feeling uplifted and re-focused.
English classes
Our mentoring services focus on skills and training. The aim is that the women who come to us for help are able to find employment and become 100% self-sufficient. We currently run English
classes every week and last year 560 women attended. Please see our future projects for details of the mentoring services we aim to set up in the coming
year.
