Your Votes Are In!
2020 Recipients of the Clothworkers' Charity Fund
Each year, we encourage all Clothworkers to donate, within their means, to the Clothworkers' Charity Fund (formerly the 'Livery Fund', a sub-fund of The Clothworkers' Foundation). The Company not only matches all donations, but also allows you, as a donor, to decide where the grants are allocated by nominating and then voting for shortlisted charities—making the Clothworkers' Charity Fund (CCF) an effective and rewarding way to directly support causes important to you.
The votes are in for 2020. This year, grants of £43,000 each will be awarded to NAPAC, Stop the Traffik and Trailblazers Mentoring.
NAPAC
The vision of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) is that of a society where every adult survivor of childhood abuse – including physical, sexual, emotional abuse or neglect – can access the support they need, when they need it, to make a journey of recovery and heal their emotional and psychological wounds. NAPAC runs a confidential support telephone line and email service, facilitated psycho-educational support groups, and a training programme for organisations and individuals that work with survivors. The charity also works with academics and policymakers to promote learning and research into the issues faced by adult survivors of childhood abuse.
Clothworkers’ Charity Fund Grant: NAPAC is experiencing consistently increasing demand for its support services and is at a critical point where it needs to increase capacity with new roles. Increasing the capacity of NAPAC’s survivor support services will enable NAPAC to fulfil its strategic aim of increasing the number of calls it takes, make the email service more accessible and valuable, and enhance the robustness of its survivor support team to reflect the increasing demand. This is of direct benefit to survivors as thousands more will be able to access pivotal emotional support. Three new part-time roles will be created. Two will be Call and Email Handlers, and one will be at the more senior supervisory Survivor Support Facilitator role, which will be focused on direct supervision and debriefing with the call and email handlers who are on shift. The roles will be based at NAPAC’s Stockport office. This additional capacity will mean NAPAC can reach and sustain the target of answering 12,000 calls from survivors each year (compared with the current 9,000 per annum).
Click here for more details on NAPAC.
Stop the Traffik
STOP THE TRAFFIK (STT) aims to create a world where people are not bought or sold. Through collaboration with partners, STT is building a global picture of human trafficking. This global picture shows hotspots and trends of trafficking, and allows STT to extract meaningful insights that are then used to prevent people being trafficked in communities around the world.It works to unite people around the world by inspiring, informing, equipping and mobilising communities to know what human trafficking is, know how to identify it, and know how to respond appropriately when they saw it. It does this through innovative research and intelligence, community co-ordination, and running awareness campaigns to empower individuals, organisations and agencies to make more informed and better choices, to signpost them to safe places for accessing help and support, and to encourage appropriate response and reporting.
Clothworkers’ Charity Fund Grant: In March 2019, STT, in collaboration with Greater Manchester Combined Authority, conducted a survey on the experiences of modern slavery and exploitation with 180 people who were either rough sleeping or homeless across Manchester. A key finding was that, although many homeless people are being targeted for exploitation, there is a lack of awareness and a need for initiatives to tackle the issue. However, the survey was not conducted on a large enough scale to be truly representative of Manchester. A grant would be used to research homeless vulnerability to exploitation, deliver four training sessions, and run two awareness and action campaigns with social media to provide a more accurate picture of the situation. This would enable STT, in collaboration with local partners and homeless people, to design and develop targeted and appropriate initiatives, and to build the capacity of local organisations and agencies to support vulnerable people in their communities. STT will deliver campaigns, activities and interventions to reduce the vulnerability of homeless people in Manchester to human trafficking and exploitation. This will be achieved by engaging those at risk: equipping homeless people and organisations that support them with information to avoid exploitative situations; signposting to local support services; and working collaboratively to create sustainable solutions.
Click here for more details on Stop the Traffik.
Trailblazers Mentoring
Operating from four prisons (Brinsford, Wandsworth, Aylesbury and ISIS), Trailblazers aims to end youth re-offending for good through mentoring, encouraging around 150 young male offenders to make a positive change and providing them with the tools, support and opportunities they need to continue on their new paths upon their release. Mentees sometimes spend up to 23 hours a day in their cells, and the only people they talk to are fellow inmates or prison officers. Mentoring allows them to speak to ‘an outsider’. Someone who doesn’t tell them what to do or judge them for the things they may have done, but someone who can help them see a different path and offer the guidance they need to create a better future. The offenders are seen by a trained professional once a week beginning six months before release, and continuing for six months after release. The national reoffend rate is 56 per cent; for mentees of Trailblazers, the reoffend rate is only 18 per cent. The cost of providing the service is around £2,150 per annum per mentee. The cost of a year in prison to the taxpayer is £59,000. Each prison project is led by an on-site Project Manager who has day-to-day responsibility for recruiting and training mentors, engaging mentees, meeting targets and data management.
Clothworkers’ Charity Fund Grant: Each prison project is led by an on-site Project Manager, who has day-to-day responsibility for recruiting and training mentors, engaging mentees, meeting targets and data management. Trailblazers wants to extend the variety and sustainability of its education, training and employment support. In order to provide a greater and more consistent level of support post release, the charity intends to recruit Community Caseworkers who will pilot a project to work directly with mentees at three of the prisons, augmenting the pastoral support provided by the mentors.
Click here for more details on Trailblazers.
Make a Donation
Inspired? Making a donation to the Clothworkers' Charity Fund is easy—all members of the Freedom and Livery are encouraged to do so. Visit our '
Charity' webpage to find out more about setting up a one-time bank transfer or a standing order for regular giving (such as annual or monthly payments). You can also contact
Emma Temple at Clothworkers' Hall if you have questions.