Safe Havens to support women and girls in Tunbridge Wells

KentOnline / KMTV

MP Mike Martin teamed up with a local womens organisation #TogetherAsALLies  and invited over 150 businesses from Tunbridge Wells to an event where they could sign up to become a safe haven.  A place to help women and girls feel safer and more supported by their community...

Transcript

00:00If you're a woman you may be well aware of the feeling of being unsafe or vulnerable

00:04but now a new scheme in Tunbridge Wells is aiming to change that by turning local businesses into

00:10lifelines called Safe Havens. Businesses can show that they've signed up by having a sticker in the

00:15window or by showing it on the Safe Havens app. Details can also be found on the Royal

00:20Tunbridge Wells Love Local app. This initiative is really trying it's you know there's people

00:27involved and people running it that have been through these experiences themselves and I think

00:33that's a massive massive part of the way that we can connect with each other with each other's

00:40experiences and therefore we can build relationship and we can build trust through that and I would

00:45I would of course encourage anybody who feels threatened or who has had any of these experiences

00:52to absolutely use this initiative to help them to support them. The initiative comes as frustration

01:01grows over delays in enforcing the Sex Based Harassment Act which was passed last year but is

01:06still not in force. In response MP Mike Martin and a local women's safety organization together as allies

01:13have come together and invited over 150 businesses in Tunbridge Wells to join the Safe Havens project.

01:20So ultimately Safe Havens are cafes, libraries, everyday locations where a woman or a young lady could

01:32walk in, frankly it's anybody, I mean anybody who feels vulnerable, they can step in, know that they

01:38could offer a chair, offer some water, plug their mobile phone in and just reset and recalibrate

01:45so that they can carry on their onward journey feeling safe. Because the challenge is that safety

01:56and feeling safe, that's very hard to police because everybody feels safety in a very different way.

02:06So we have a basket of initiatives that are going to be rolling out over the next two or three years. This

02:12is the first one, the Safe Havens one which is obviously about giving women and girls but also

02:18boys and men can use it if they feel vulnerable travelling home but it's predominantly aimed at women

02:22and girls. Some of the other work, some of the other initiatives in that basket of initiatives will be

02:27focused on working with boys and young men to educate them, to bring alive to them how women and girls feel in

02:35certain situations. Training for the participating businesses begins in June but organisers say it's

02:41not too late for others to get involved and to help women and girls feel that little bit safer and supported.

02:47Kristen Hawthorne, KMTV, Tunbridge Wells

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