A Sheffield Women’s charity received emergency funding which will allow them to keep their doors open until June.
Vida Sheffield provides a service that helps women suffering from domestic and sexual abuse-related trauma.
After announcing their imminent closure scheduled for March in February, funding from The Henry Smith Charity and match funding from The Brelms Trust for up to £25,000 was enough to bail Vida out of their bleak situation.
Karen Hague MBE, Chief Executive of Vida Sheffield, said: “I feel an amazing amount of relief that there are people out there that still think it’s so incredibly important to support this service.
“Clearly, this is about improving mental health, and managing symptoms of post-traumatic stress associated with trauma.
“My concern was, what happens to those women out there if service does not continue?
“There isn’t enough of this kind of service generally within the NHS or the volunteering community sector.”
With Vida approaching it’s 30th anniversary in June, Ms. Smith is hopeful that the match funding will be able to carry them through to March 2026.
She added: “There is so much positivity, wherever we go, even if the funding doesn’t follow, all we’re hearing is good things about what Vida has achieved that it needs to survive.
“Everyone seems to want to do their best to help us.”
Ms. Smith is hopeful that this is just the beginning and that more funding will follow.
“We haven’t given up.
“The problem we have at the moment is that the government has not announced any new funding to the sector, so existing contracts have been extended for a year, but we are not in a position to compete for those.
“We’re hoping within that 12-month period we will hear more, and there will be more funding coming into specialist services for domestic abuse.”
Vida is reaching out to people for donations to help them in their fight to survive.
Links to donate can be found on their website vidasheffield.org.uk and their social media pages.