Thetford's ladies football team and domestic abuse charity working together to raise awareness

The Daisy programme will run dedicated sessions, invite players to become ambassadors and have their logo on the teams kit

Author: Tom ClabonPublished 17th Feb 2022

A domestic abuse charity in Thetford is joining up with the local ladies football team, to raise awareness about the issue.

The Daisy programme will run dedicated sessions with the club, invite players to become charity ambassadors and have their logo on the teams kit.

It comes as the largest study of its kind has revealed that a quarter of women worldwide have suffered some form of domestic abuse.

The research, published today in the Lancet, says one in seven have experienced it this year alone - that's the equivalent of 492-million people.

Leigh Doran is the Daisy Programme's project manager, she says it can't be a taboo subject anymore: "It's got to be a conversation that we have and it can no longer be hidden up and hushed up. Nobody knows how to approach it currently.

"A lot of people don't want to ask the question, because they don't how to deal with the answer. We want it to a be a conversation you have, as you would for any other serious situation, like suicide. It needs to be normalised and it needs to be a conversation that's open and available to all".

She told us that initiatives like this are vitally needed and will hopefully change lives: "We are seeing pockets of increase in some cases but not a dramatic rise, I'd say. Tensions have been heightened because people have been in restricted spaces, together.

"We have had issues with child contact where children will not be staying with the resident parent and then there's issues of bringing them back, with one maybe saying 'you've got Covid, I'm not bring Charlie back', for example.

"It's all about that one, two, three or however many people we can now reach out to, who maybe come up and say, I saw Thetford Ladies playing and I saw that they're supporting the domestic abuse charity, that's amazing and that's me, what do I do".

Alison Webb is Breckland Council's, Executive Member for Housing, Health & Communities.

She told us that the local authority are keeping an eye on their wider 'Inspiring Communities programme, which gives grants to community projects, like the Daisy Programme: "Every area that we are partnering with, we are measuring so we understand what the impact has been on the community and we can actually justify the million pounds, because it's a lot of money and it's got to be spent in the right areas.

"So, it's year two and it's going really well and we're really making the difference out there".

If you or someone you know needs support due to domestic violence, you can find out more about what's available over on the Daisy Programme's website.

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