Minister for Employment speaks out on importance of Support Organisations for Women

On March 8th every year, we celebrate International Women’s Day. A day focused on highlighting the importance of Women in our Society. This year marks the 115th Anniversary of the date, having begun in 1911, as simply a movement to demand fair wages & safer working conditions for Women.

As part of the occasion this year, the UK Minister for Employment Dame Diana Johnson visited GROW Cymru in Swansea last week to learn from their team about the valuable work they do to support vulnerable women in Swansea. She heard firsthand from the team at GROW the journey that led the organisation to where they are today and the trials they faced along the way. The minister was also given a tour of their storage room and shown just how much work/stock goes into ensuring that the women of Swansea can have the support they need.

Following this discussion/brief tour of the building, a journalist from the Swansea Standard had an exclusive opportunity to speak to the Minister & ask a few questions based on the revelations from the discussion with GROW Cymru.

Firstly, we asked the minister how important she felt organisations like GROW Cymru are for supporting women throughout the UK. She expressed that community based organisations that can reach out to support women in need in various different circumstances is such a valuable resource to have. She also mentioned that building confidence in women to apply for jobs/get into employment was invaluable and a vital thing to have available.

We then asked how imported she felt it was that with these spaces, there were options that were ran wholly by women for women. The minister replying to this mentioned the importance of women only spaces, especially for those who may have been victim to domestic abuse/human trafficking having a space that will feel safe for them. Following on from this, she specifically mentioned how not everyone would be comfortable going to the pub or similar public spaces, yet she could feel from her visit that GROW Cymru would be a safe space for any women in those situations.

For the next question during the discussion with the Minister, one of the team at GROW mentioned that a problem they often faced when trying to secure funding for their services is that funding would often go to the larger companies first, and then there’s very little, if anything left for smaller organisations like GROW Cymru. We asked the Minister how she felt about this issue and what she thought could be done to address it. A particular concern she noted was something else the team at GROW had mentioned of how they would get people referred to them from Job Centres, yet they’re reliant on donations/self funding for their services. So she felt there were definitely questions to be asked of how they could better support the community/voluntary sector’s as she felt these sectors were invaluable for supporting people that the public sector can’t quite reach.

Lastly, we asked the Minister how important she felt that collaboration between these kinds of organisations are to ensure that Women, from one source or another can receive this vital support. She expressed how important she thought it was that organisations like GROW have good relations with similar organisations, as well as places like Churches, Schools & Employers. Also mentioning in closing how she could see from the people that were running GROW that they were happy to build & maintain these relationships and that it was actively making GROW’s support more effective for its userbase.

International Women’s Day has come a long way from its beginnings as simply a way to campaign for equal rights to celebrating the history/significance of women to humanity. However, it’s important that we remember many women are still disadvantaged in society. And as the Minister clearly understands, it’s vital that support organisations like GROW Cymru exist to ensure these women in difficult circumstances have the necessary avenues for support to get back on their feet & ensure they can live as healthy & happy lives as possible. 

We’d also like to again thank the Minister for Employment for her time in answering a few of our questions during her visit to GROW Cymru.