After having read and written about the alarming Guardian article about London’s only Rape Crisis centre “facing closure” this year, I rattled off a concerned email to the centre in question, asking about ways we could help.
CEO Yvonne Traynor herself was kind enough to reply to me personally, and explained:
“Thank you so much for your interest in RASASC. The Guardian quote is misleading. I was talking about funding and how we cannot plan very long term because as soon as one funding agreement ends,
"We have to find replacement funding which is often difficult because funders want to see a new project and not an old tried and tested one. Some of our funding comes to an end this year and some grants were only for one year. So in July, I will be frantically looking for
a) Grants that apply to us
b) Grants that will fund our projects and
c) Enough money to cover all our present costs plus inflation.
"It is a logistical nightmare but as we cannot ‘raise prices’ as statutory organisations can, we are at the mercy of funders, grant making institutions the government etc.
"Boris Johnson did promise us sustainable funding for the next four years (pre his election) but since a meeting with the mayor’s office in October last year, we have not heard anything!"
Here’s the interesting bit for me, in case you scanned it the first time:
“Boris Johnson did promise us sustainable funding for the next four years (pre his election) but since a meeting with the mayor’s office in October last year, we have not heard anything!”
Okay, then! Here’s where Londoners can get involved. I have asked Yvonne if there are any plans to raise awareness about this and will be researching ways to find out the Mayor’s plans on this issue. I voted for him because I trusted him to (mostly) do what’s right for London. And what’s right for London is keeping this much-needed centre alive.
I’m off to find out what I can do to get Boris’s attention! Any ideas; you know what the comments are for.
Image via Weekly Standard