Dynamic Support is based in Manchester and aims to promote the wellbeing of African women and girls who are seeking asylum or have been granted refugee status. They do this by the promotion of good health, the provision of recreational facilities and helping women to face issues that impact their quality of life, reducing isolation and improving their employability. As the chair, Yvonne expends an enormous amount of effort to make these things happen. As a small charity organisation, they are limited by the unpredictability of funding, as a result, they need fundraising skills to help their growth.
We spoke to Yvonne Edouke Riley, Founder of Dynamic Support, about what the support from Rosa means to her organisation:
Without Rosa, Dynamic Support would not exist and this would be devastating for the women and girls who rely on us. Rosa has equipped me and empowered my organisation to properly meet the needs of women and girls.
Dynamic Support supports vulnerable Black and minoritised women. Many of these women are refugees and carry trauma. We work to improve their mental health and well-being, reduce isolation, and ultimately improve their employability. We help them to overcome their circumstances and to be independent. We can help to change women’s and girls’ lives because we have shared experiences and understand them, just like Rosa has helped change and grow our organisation because they understand us and speak our language.
Crucial support
Rosa has supported us since 2017 and we have received seven grants. While the amount of money we have got from the grants may seem small to some, it is unbelievably huge for us and has enabled us to make the lives of women better. Dynamic Support struggles to respond to the needs of women and girls in our area – their needs are vast and the support just isn’t there for them elsewhere. Without us, many women and girls would have no-one to turn to.
Thanks to the ongoing funding from Rosa, we’ve been able to build and grow our network and strengthen relationships with other organisations and institutions in our area to help women and girls. For example, we have been able to develop a relationship with local job centres and Back2Work in Manchester.
Back2Work signposts women experiencing long term unemployment to us so we can offer them placements and support them to develop essential skills for the world of work. We have helped women to develop practical skills such as sewing and cooking alongside essential skills like speaking English. We work with women who are often scared and vulnerable and we, first of all, have to help them to feel comfortable and confident with us. We run workshops where women can come together in a safe space and learn or improve practical skills – but they are also practicing speaking to each other in English, as that’s the language we use during these sessions. The women feel comfortable and they aren’t embarrassed about their language skills because the focus is on sewing or cooking instead of being in a language class and perhaps feeling they are not good enough.
Offering safety and healing
We offer a safe, supportive, and friendly environment where everyone is in a very similar situation – we all sew together and we wear the clothes we’ve made and we cook together and share the food we’ve made – this helps women and girls to overcome loneliness. It breaks down barriers and means no-one is isolated because they can’t speak English and their only family is their children. Many women feel they can’t share their stories or experiences because they feel shame and fear. They feel out of their depth but with us they feel safe and can grow, heal, and become independent.
We also have women referred to us by local Job Centres – we can’t give them jobs but, as women with shared experiences, we can offer much more support. We understand their needs much better than a Job Centre and we can help them to improve their skills, which improves mental health and makes it more likely that they will be able to find work and all the good things this brings.
Improving visibility
The funding from Rosa doesn’t just support us to run our activities. It has meant we have been able to raise the profile of Dynamic Support and to become visible. We have also partnered with the University of Manchester’s Business School. Every year we work with a group of their Master’s students who join our workshops and learn from the women in our groups, while supporting them, and our organisation, with their skills – for example in IT. The Master’s Students who join us don’t have English as their first language and it’s so good for our women to see they are not alone – they can learn together. This role-modelling is really powerful and over the years we’ve see women we’ve supported going on to get their Master’s because they’ve seen it’s possible! So many other funders and organisations just don’t understand our work and the value that it has. Rosa does. Rosa understands us and knows the struggle that women’s organisations face. Without Rosa’s funding none of our work would be possible.
Professional growth
Along with funding, the training we been able to access through Rosa is hugely valuable and has meant the whole Dynamic Support team has learned new skills. The safeguarding training was so valuable and has meant we can be certain we are dealing with sensitive issues and supporting our vulnerable women properly. These are skills we can take with us and use outside of Dynamic Support and we have all grown professionally alongside the women we support – thanks to Rosa. We are also incredibly grateful to feel a part of Rosa’s network – we feel like family and we can share our learning with others while learning from them.
We would not exist without Rosa, not many funders understand the culture of Black, Asian or minority ethnic, women’s charities – Rosa does and it shows in the ways they support us. The need for Dynamic Support is great and growing and we need funders who have a deep understanding of us and the women we support. We are extremely grateful for Rosa.