By Jess McCabe | 27 January 2010, 15:08

The Women’s Support Project in Glasgow has had its funding slashed by Glasgow City Council, and is now searching for alternative funding. A reader sent in this statement:

The Women’s Support Project’s core funding has been affected by local authority budget cuts, with Glasgow City Council cutting its contribution by 100%. The Project is seeking alternative funding to continue the service, and is also launching this funding appeal based on individual giving.

We need to raise £100,000 as quickly as possible to secure the Project for the coming year and to allow time to identify alternative funding. Can you offer us £20? If 5000 people say ‘Yes’ to that question, we will reach our target and save the Project.

However donations of any size will be very much appreciated. You can donate or fundraise on the Women’s Support Project website or send a cheque to 31 Stockwell Street, Glasgow, G1 4RZ. You can also help by forwarding this information to friends and colleagues, and encouraging people to join Save the Women’s Support Project on Facebook.

The Women’s Support Project was established in 1983 and has provided crucial support to vulnerable women, as well as providing resources, information, training and public education on a broad range of ‘violence against women’ issues. The support and information service has offered a lifeline to thousands of women over the last 27 years, prioritising support for women whose children have been sexually abused. The loss of this funding threatens to end a vital and specialised service that offers vulnerable women and their families crisis, ongoing and long term support, depending on their needs.

The Project is a key player in preventative work against violence against women in Scotland, offering an annual programme of training workshops and public education events, including an annual screen debate to raise awareness of child sexual abuse, and a range of seminars on issues such as domestic abuse and child contact, child protection, and child sexual abuse.

Tireless campaigning against commercial sexual exploitation has been a feature of the Project’s work, including highlighting prostitution as a form of violence against women and identifying the need to challenge the demand from men to buy sex as the only effective longterm solution. The WSP has also contributed to pioneering international prostitution research, organised hugely successful national conferences on commercial sexual exploitation, and offered local and national anti-pornography training.

The Women’s Support Project is crucial to the fight against violence against women and the loss of this key service would be a serious retrograde step for women who have experienced violence, and for the fight to end violence against women.

If you live in Glasgow, you can also write to your councillor - the Women’s Support Project has all the details you need here.