Meet Bec Hopkins, who has been volunteering with us as a befriender since Sanctuary was founded, and has recently launched our new women’s group. Bec is an artist and was responsible for our beautiful Welcome Wall at the Refugee Week exhibition. This may have influenced the choice of outings the women’s group has been on so far; galleries and art exhibitions. The women have loved seeing new things, especially as they wouldn’t have even known they were there. But the main purpose of the group is a safe space to get together and chat, improve English and give a sense of solidarity for those who may otherwise feel very isolated.

Young children are welcome at the group, so little Juno has been supporting mum Bec with the hosting. We have found that women are often reluctant to join social activities as they feel they have to stay home with their children, so it was important that this wasn’t a barrier for the women’s group.

Bec has lots of fun activities planned for the group and even successfully applied for a grant to fund it. What a fabulous project, thank you Bec!

This week’s group had to be cancelled due to the Covid situation, but we hope it will be possible to start it up again early in 2022. It wouldn’t be the same at all over Zoom!

– Gemma Driver