This December, we have a unique opportunity to extend our collective impact through the Big Give campaign. Every pound donated will be doubled through match funding, helping us expand our reach and ensure more women have access to role models, networks and opportunities that change lives.
By giving towards this campaign, you can amplify your support and stand with us in empowering the next generation of women leaders.
These are turbulent times for race and class inclusion work, with the rise in far-right activity making our mission all the more urgent. Our programmes are acts of defiance, resistance, and hope. Now more than ever, the women we support need strong networks standing in solidarity besides them.
- If you’re a young Black or Brown working class woman, the realities of intersectional oppression mean there is a strong chance you do not progress into sustained employment
- Systematic inequality makes it that much harder to centre your needs emotionally, physically, and materially
- Our community of women have been denied the safety and space to build the confidence, knowledge, support networks and a healthy sense of entitlement needed to really see and achieve their full personal and potential.
Statistics show that…
- 46% of ethnic minority children are living in poverty in Britain
- For every £1 of white British wealth earned, Indian households earn 90 – 95p, Pakistani households 50p, Black Caribbean 20p, and Black African and Bangladeshi households earn 10p.
- Fewer than 1% of students at GCSE level study a book by a writer of colour.
Source: The Runnymede Trust
Campaign Aims
Goal: Fund the core operational costs of the current programme and secure the continuation of YMI’s offering for Black and Brown women.
Core costs:
- Desk rentals in our Hackney based co-working space: We’re a small team of six and have come a long way since our founder set this all up from her kitchen table – besides there’s not really space for all of us there! Also women on our programmes love coming to visit us at our co-work office.
- Staff salaries: Note we run 2.5 programmes across 12 months and on each one, there are 25 women. Each of our staff have some kind of 1-1 relationship with the women to help them navigate through the programme.
- Therapy costs: Many of our women report suffering from anxiety and depression linked to poverty, racism, some kind of gender based abuse either as adults or children, and late diagnoses of neurodiversity. Good mental health is critical to securing positive outcomes for their longer term happy futures.
- Emergency groceries: The cost of living crisis has made it even harder for low income people to pay for basic groceries, and sometimes women on our programme don’t have money for food basics. We have an emergency groceries fund to help in these moments but we need to top it up more regularly due to this crisis.
Continuation of delivery work:
Our free-to-access programmes for women include:
- 4 months of weekly 1-1 therapy and 1-1 mentoring;
- Weekly group learning sessions (rotating across cultural and creative spaces to get women to explore their city and feel it as their own)
- breakfast, lunch, emotional check-ins
- guest speaker sessions, workshops, debate clubs, seminars;
- support to access work experience;
- ‘Social Prescription’ experiences including:
- dance, online yoga, a running club, cooking, socials and nature retreats as a means of helping the women gain knowledge, enhance soft skills and better their connections with the YMI / local community
- and finally a graduation event!
Impact
Having delivered 27 programmes to over 600 women across 14 years, our holistic approach (therapy, coaching and mentoring; creative, personal and eo-spatial geographic exploration) truly transforms their life chances. With robust monitoring and evaluation of programmes to date, we can confidently estimate that:
- Around 90% of women who join us will complete our 16 week programme;
- 100% will report improved happiness, confidence, wellness, and certainty about how to reach personal and work goals;
- By graduation, 50% will report securing employment – with this increasing to 75-80% six months after.
Reporting
We will share reports that show:
- Completed surveys by women at the start, end of, and six months after programme completion
- Through this data, we ascertain benefits, earnings, employment status and changes to them; as well as upwards shifts in soft / hard skills and attitudes that are integral for succeeding in life.
Additionally, we commission independently researched and written case studies for several women at the point of graduation, and a year later to assess longer term changes due to their participation in the You Make It programme.
