As many of my friends and family know I worked for Hestia, a charity which empowers vulnerable people to make positive changes in their lives. They support over 4000 adults and children every year, including women and children surviving domestic abuse.
Many of the women and children come with nothing, leaving all of their clothes, toys and money behind...but they all bring with them the traumatic experiences and memories of the abuse. My job, and that of the people I worked with, was to support the women and children to create a brighter, happier and safer future...and also to provide a safe, happy and welcoming environment in the refuges.
When I talk to people about the work the most common responses are "I don't know how you do that, it must be so difficult" or "That sounds really tough, I wouldn't be able to do it, you must be really brave". Well I'm not going to lie and pretend that the work was easy, but the really brave people are the women and children Hestia work with.
They say "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". For the women and children, that single step is making the decision to leave an abusive relationship...which is much harder to do than say. To raise money to support them on their journey I am taking a single step out of a plane at 10,000ft...
You can help too, by taking the less scary step of sponsoring me. No donation is too small, and the women and children will appreciate anything you can give...
