10 APRIL 2017

---

• Changemakers programme to challenge gender norms and stereotypes
• Amina MWRC, Blueprint 22, Disability Wales, Fearless Futures, Leap Confronting Conflict, Stills Gallery Edinburgh, and The Runnymede Trust will receive grants of £8,000 to £15,000 to work in communities across the UK.

The Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading membership charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights, has announced the successful grantees for the Spirit of Women Changemakers small grants programme. The programme is supported by funding charity Spirit of 2012 (Spirit), who created the Changemakers programme to mark and celebrate the centenary of the iconic moment in 1918 when women first won the right to vote.

Amina MWRC, Blueprint 22, Disability Wales, Fearless Futures, Leap Confronting Conflict, Stills Gallery Edinburgh, and The Runnymede Trust will receive grants of £8,000 to £15,000 to work in communities across the UK. In the year running up to the centenary celebrations, they will work to improve women’s body confidence and challenge objectification, and challenge traditional gendered caring roles and the undervaluing of care.

Alongside these aims, the projects will look to change perceptions of disability and drive social cohesion. Demand was high, as over 400 charities and social enterprises applied to the programme, through systems designed by leading business services company BE Group. The final grantees were selected by an expert panel of women with civil society and funding experience.

Sam Smethers, Fawcett Society Chief Executive said:

“We were delighted with the quality and diversity of the many applications we received, which demonstrated the ambition in the voluntary sector to tackle the harmful norms and stereotypes that underlie gender inequality in our society. We are looking forward to working alongside these great organisations to drive real change across the country.”

Debbie Lye, Chief Executive of Spirit of 2012, said:

“100 years on from women getting the right to vote in general elections, women and girls in the UK still face formidable challenges. Spirit is proud to be collaborating with Fawcett and BE Group to fund these innovative projects, which will celebrate women and empower them to change things for the better.”

The funded activity includes work across England, Scotland, and Wales, with women across different age ranges, ethnic groups, and disabled and non-disabled people. It ranges from a media and workshop campaign to change perceptions of disabled women in Wales, to intensive workshops on objectification with at-risk girls in south London.

Download the press release.
Read about Fawcett's Spirit of Women campaign here.

---

For more information, infographics or interviews, contact: 

FRESH COMMUNICATIONS PRESS OFFICE
[email protected]
0117 369 0025 

ABBY RICHARDSON
[email protected]
07876 378 733 

NATHALIE GOLDEN
[email protected] 
07769 666 627

---

Read more

The Spirit of Women Changemakers grants programme was launched by Spirit of 2012 Chief Executive Debbie Lye at Fawcett’s Spirit of Women Changemakers Conference in Manchester on 19th November 2016.

Changemakers offered grants of between £5,000 and £15,000 to organisations for new projects which offer creative, cultural, sporting or volunteering responses to the following challenges:

• Improve women’s body confidence and challenge or overcome objectification
• Challenge traditional gendered caring roles and the undervaluing of care
• Support the development of healthy personal relationships
• The funded projects also meet the wider goals of the Fawcett Society and Spirit of 2012:
• Demonstrate that the activity will contribute to social cohesion, bringing diverse groups together to engage in their communities
• Challenge perceptions of disability, through the project activity itself or through ensuring inclusion of disabled people in the project activity
• Improve the wellbeing of participants and volunteers involved in the project
• Have a celebratory aspect in the run up to the 2018 centenary of women getting the vote.

Applications were open to a range of organisations including charities, Community Interest Companies and Social Enterprises, and from partnerships or coalitions. The funded activity will be completed by March 2018.