Funding Update: The Symondson Foundation

An exciting update for Beyond the Streets as we have secured an award of £60,000 over 3 years from The Symondson Foundation.

The Symondson Foundation joined us on our November walk in 2021, where we took to the streets of East London in twilight to raise awareness of violence against women and girls.

The Symondson Foundation aims to give the power of choice to those who are disempowered due to inequity; support pioneering research and care work dedicated to improving emotional and physical wellbeing; and  facilitate educational and cultural programmes that enrich and inspire.

The Symondson Foundation told us they have committed to unrestricted, multi-year giving to support us at Beyond the Streets, particularly whilst we expand our training programs, and concentrate on sharing our much-needed research on this often-underserved cohort of women in our society.

Unrestricted funding means that we can allocate this fund to any avenue of our service provision. We believe in empowering women who sell sex to determine their own futures. This award will support these journeys by helping us to remove stigma and improve access to services for these women, by supporting our capacity to train other organisations and professionals. This will include upskilling their ability to work effectively alongside these women who often face multiple disadvantages, past trauma, and other challenges.

This grant will support our direct services: ‘Beyond Support’ and ‘Door of Hope’ to deliver vital support to women who all too often fall through the gaps of service provision. Beyond Support is a national telephone support service, where our support workers empower women to unpack their traumas, explore their options and focus on whatever they feel they need to talk about. Door of Hope works within the Tower Hamlets borough of East London. Door of Hope runs outreach sessions twice a week which offer a chance for women to learn about the support they could access. This includes 1:1 support sessions with trained Women’s Support Workers, as well as drop-ins.

We are so excited to work with this funding partner and really appreciate this multi-year funding award. We love the support that The Symondson Foundation has shown to raise awareness of our organisation and our work too.