At Bras N Things we believe in supporting women and girls in any way we can. Women’s and Girls’ Emergency Centre (WAGEC), are a feminist and grassroots organisation based in Redfern, Sydney, doing incredible work empowering women and children to build safe futures. We are beyond excited and proud to have them as our first community partner.
Their mission? To empower women and children to build safe futures. They’re the women supporting women in crisis; every night, providing material aid, case management, biopsychosocial support and crisis response to around 200 women and children impacted by homelessness, domestic violence and systemic disadvantage. Our partnership will help raise awareness and contribute to their brilliant and important work.
In the interest of keeping our community safe, please know that you have support if you, or anyone you know, is subject to gender based violence. Our Watch is a national leader in the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia.
Their details are Our Watch home | Preventing violence against women and their children.
Visit their website at: www.ourwatch.org.au / https://www.1800respect.org.au/
Together, and with your support, we can make a real difference: to help end gender-based violence and create a community where women and children are safe to confidently be themselves. Because we’re making room for change - in more ways than one. A brighter, bolder future for everyone. ✨
Women’s and Girls’ Emergency Centre (WAGEC) is a feminist, grassroots organisation that supports women and families in crisis and advocates for social change in the community. WAGEC is based in Redfern, Sydney and works on the lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. They respectfully acknowledge that the land they work on was, is and always will be Aboriginal Land.
Every night, WAGEC supports about 200 women and children impacted by homelessness, domestic violence and systemic disadvantage. They do this through providing material aid, case management, biopsychosocial support, accommodation, and crisis responses. Equally WAGEC seeks to address the underlying causes of gender-based violence through primary prevention activities with communities and private and public entities that want to be a part of the global movement to achieve gender equality. Building on 45 years of practice expertise and a rich history working with the community, (which you can read more about here), WAGEC provides community education, training and development, research and systemic advocacy to build safer futures for survivors and offer a sense of hope.
WAGEC takes a holistic and long-term approach to trauma recovery for those they support, walking alongside survivors to deliver vital, innovative programs that build financial independence, nurture healing and wellbeing and enrich healthy development in children and young people. WAGEC works from the premise that along with physical safety that comes through access to sustainable, affordable housing, women and their families have a right to be supported in their recovery from trauma, given equal access to opportunities and empowered to create their own safe futures.
WAGEC’s prevention activities also take a long-term approach to ending gender-based violence and stopping violence from happening in the first place. WAGEC works with business, government and non-government organisations, community leaders, supporters, volunteers and partners to build literacy and an evidence-based understanding about the causes of gender-based violence, exploring what makes healthy relationships and effective techniques for active bystander and ally interventions. Gender-based violence is everybody’s business and the work of challenging and changing it is therefore for everyone. It’s partnership with changemakers and champions like members of the Bras N Things community that will help communities shift the underlying attitudes and behaviours that allow violence to occur.
This is why Bras N Things is partnering with WAGEC to empower women and children to build safe futures. Together we are working to end-gender based violence and create a community where women and families are safe to confidently be themselves. To kick off our partnership, Bras N Things will be donating care packs to provide essential items to women and their children when they arrive at WAGEC’s crisis shelters. When women and their families arrive at a WAGEC service, they may have very few material possessions. Packing too many items – no matter how essential – can often be too conspicuous.
When WAGEC’s case managers prepare a room at one of their shelters for a woman and her family they are doing more than making a bed: they’re ensuring that women and children have basic necessities like toiletries, pyjamas, underwear, towels and sheets. They’re helping to build or restore some normality to a family’s life with these essential items, which can be a small but meaningful way to help them on their journey to rebuild dignity.
When you purchase a pair of Bras N Things PJs, you will be helping to provide women and families in crisis with essential basic items after leaving a violent situation. PJs you can purchase here.
Supporting WAGEC is about more than giving a financial donation. It’s about being part of an inclusive community that empowers women and families and supporting the movement to end gender-based violence in a generation. Join us by signing up for WAGEC’s mailing list or following them on social media.
Thank you for being a part of this movement and for helping Bras N Things and WAGEC empower women and children to build safe futures. We couldn’t do it without you.
We can't thank Elin Andersson enough for the amazing illustrations she has created for the Bras N Things x WAGEC partnership. Follow her on social media here.