Our fantastic Customer Services Team Leader, Stef Bull, has written a great blog on how she has been involved in raising money for Women’s Aid.

Women’s Aid is the national charity working to end domestic abuse against women and children. They have been at the forefront of shaping and coordinating responses to domestic violence and abuse through practice for over 40 years. They empower survivors by keeping their voices at the heart of their work, working with and for women and children by listening to them and responding to their needs.

“A couple of weeks ago Team North Star competed in the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Housing Cup to raise money for Women’s Aid.

After an eventful early morning and a missing bus, Team North Star made it to Liverpool.

First up we played Team Thirteen in the Teesside derby where we recorded a loss. We soon realised that we had severely under-trained compared to everyone else (choosing to focus more on our fundraising efforts than our bat and ball skills). So after our loss, we regrouped for refreshments in preparation for game number 2 against Yorkshire based InCommunities. We lost again.

The final heat involved the two teams with the most points. By now I’m sure you can see where this is going… We didn’t make it.

Now, we could feel pretty sorry for ourselves and sit and lick our wounds, but we didn’t. We went to have an epic day so an epic day we continued to have. It was decided through no real reason at all that we wanted to support West Midlands Housing. We laughed, we screamed, we cheered and we chanted. They only went on to win, and we like to think that it was the help of the North Star Cheerleaders that did it!

Yes, it would have been nice to win the Northern heat, but we won in other ways.

We were challenged to raise £500. To date we have raised £1,066.23 which made us the top fundraisers of all teams competing nationwide.

We also won the day with some pretty epic feedback from the other teams who saw our amazing culture and personalities shine through.”

 

“I was speaking to our Team today and they said you were awesome sports and made the event” Caroline Chapman,  InCommunities manager

“Massive applause to North Star rounders bounders. No1 fundraiser, No1 sporting spirit & the real winners with @womensaid.”

“Bravo to @northstarhg cheerleaders. You are epic #weloveourcheerleaders” Justin Wilson, West Midlands Housing

“Now for the serious stuff – We were raising money for Women’s Aid, the CIH President’s (the brilliant Alison Inman) chosen charity. This charity has been chosen as there is a huge role that housing can play in tackling domestic abuse.

• 1 in 4 women experience domestic abuse

• 2 women are killed every week in the UK through Domestic Abuse

• The number one barrier to women leaving an abusive situation, is housing

• Housing providers are ideally placed to spot and respond to domestic abuse as a first point of contact

• 63% of tenants who are victims for domestic abuse had rent arrears to the Notice of Seeking Possession stage

• 40% of tenants who are suffering domestic abuse had ASB complaints against them

Since this event, CIH have launched the ‘Make a Stand’ campaign for Housing Associations to sign up to, which we have done. We really want to make a difference where we know we can.

Being involved has had a huge impact on myself and my team. I have now concentrated on developing awareness across my Customer Services Team, dedicating our ‘team time meeting’ to raising awareness around domestic abuse, going through North Star’s domestic abuse policy and looking at what we need to look out for on calls, focusing on things that might flag warning signs. This is just the start and I hope to continue to promote awareness to my staff and beyond.

Thanks to all of you for your support in the lead up to and throughout the event and we hope for continued support throughout the ‘Make a Stand’ campaign.”

Make a Stand is a partnership with DAHA and Alison Inman’s presidential charity Women’s Aid. The campaign gives housing organisations the chance to sign up to put in place four commitments which could make a real difference.