Recounting Women

I had to buy these shoes when I was made homeless they were £6 from Tesco. I lost all my belongings – I walked everywhere in them. I can’t throw them away even though they have holes in them. From riches to rags. We have all experienced the power of photographs - whether they leave us shocked, moved or wanting to find out more. At Scottish Women's Aid, we wanted to harness the power of pictures to allow women who have experienced domestic abuse to tell their own story and empower women, who are often marginalised, to capture aspects of their life and experiences and share them with others. In the Recounting Women project we worked with women who have experienced domestic abuse and whose voice is rarely heard in public policy making. This approach enables them to anonymously and creatively share information about the issues that really affect them and the difficulties they face in rebuilding their lives. We used a photovoice approach – developing text and image, to support women to create images that highlight what happened to them, and bring about change. In the project, funded by the Digital Challenge Fund, we partnered with two Women’s Aid groups - Perthshire and Glasgow East Women’s Aid to recruit women to take part in weekly group sessions. In these sessions women shared their experiences and identified the issues they wanted to show in their photographs. The overall focus of the project was to gather evidence about the impact of welfare reform and other austerity measures on women’s ability to rebuild their lives following domestic abuse.  Many of the photos illustrate how hard it is for women and their children to start over again with very little income.  It’s difficult to explain to children that there isn’t enough money now to pay for the things they took for granted like a computer or access to the internet.  Many women lose their home and possessions; have to navigate their way through a complex and often unforgiving benefits system while coping with the impact of domestic abuse on themselves and their children. The women involved in the project also wanted to highlight the other barriers they experienced in accessing housing, education, work, health services and the justice system. They wanted people to have a better understanding of how domestic abuse had affected their sense of self, their health and wellbeing. This is the Sheriff Court where I experienced so much injustice. Including unsupervised visits and Bar Reports that weren’t fair for me and my children. How much abuse can a father do to a child that puts his children out on the street, changes the locks, puts their clothes outside in bin bags. Then they force the children to see their dad while I’m trying to help them forget the trauma. The project developed women’s digital and photographic skills; validated the importance of sharing their life experiences and provided a platform for sharing these through their involvement in the development of a website recountingwomen.co.uk. Please visit it to listen to what these women are saying about domestic abuse.