Introduction

The North Wales Women’s Centre

The North Wales Women’s Centre works to provide services to women from Rhyl and North Wales to improve their lives through collaboration with local and regional organisations. With partners from higher education, further education, community agencies, employment agencies, mental health agencies, probation services and housing associations we aim to improve the social and economic development of women in North Wales. Together with these organisations we aim to develop a "Centre of Excellence" for the women of North Wales. The Centre works to develop wider access to information, training, employment advice, welfare support, health and wellbeing activities and ultimately aims to have a positive impact on the lives of women and their families. Our plans for the new phase of the project aim to create social enterprises within the Centre to support and sustain much of the running of the centre. The relocation to our new building was the first step to sustainability for the project due to its’ ‘shop window’ location. Our wish is to secure funding for the running of the project to further develop the ideas into sustainable business ideas with support from the many organisations wishing to work with us.

Many strategic level organisations are recognising that we have created an initiative which attracts traditionaly 'hard to reach' women they have previously struggled to engage with. Through partnership working at the centre we can support these women in a more holistic way which will have a more sustained impact on the quality of women's lives. This in turn will have a positive ripple effect on the communities of North Wales.

The project supports all women including:

Lone Parents

Women with a disability

Women of 50+ age group

Unemployed women

Women suffering domestic abuse and women rebuilding their lives after an abusive relationship

Low skilled women who wish to improve their skills

Women with no experience of Higher Education who wish to access H.E.

Women who want to return to employment

Women who want to volunteer

Women wanting to train in non traditional subjects for women

BME Women

Women rehabilitating from poor mental health

Welsh speakers

Women ex offenders

Women suffering poor physical health

At the centre, women will access training, support and activities to develop their skills and self confidence in order to open up opportunities for employment, volunteering, training and education.

This will impact on the women with the following results:

Long term ‘inactive’ women becoming active members of their community

Improved health and wellbeing of women

Women gaining employment

Women learning skills to access higher paid employment

Women working to support each other

Women become volunteers

Reduced isolation of women

Women able to source support for difficult issues affecting them and their families

Women learning skills and improved self confidence impacting positively on family life.

The project also has an impact on the community as a whole encouraging:

Improved multi-agency working through an active steering group creating more efficient and effective services for women

Raised awareness of the impact of domestic abuse and personal safety issues affecting women and their families

Improved Community Safety

The location of the Centre is in West Rhyl.

This is identified as an area of great need but also an area of investment through the Rhyl Going Forward initiative.