About us

Our Aims

To enable, encourage and empower women to play a greater role in the planning and development of their community and their lives.

To make the Bogside and Brandywell area a good place for women to live.

Projects / Activities

Education and Training.

Support to local women with particular emphasis on women and their families.

Provision of an adequate amount of high quality childcare in order to create the opportunities for women to fully participate.

Information giving e.g. health issues, social policy and welfare rights.

Networking/linking with others.

Social provision

Research Project - Looking at steps to bring women into education and explore the low expectations of young people.

Sigh-Posting.

Women in the Bogside and Brandywell area have largely borne the effects of the endemic levels of poverty, unemployment, deprivation and conflict associated with the area. Women have suffered as a result of the absence of social amenities and childcare facilities locally.

Women's unemployment and poverty, broken marriages, teenage pregnancies, lone parent families, domestic violence and social isolation are all features associated with the lives of women in this area.

The daily experience of unpaid work such as childminding and managing homes on shoestring budgets, often in total isolation, is the unseen reality of many women's lives.

It was the recognition of the extent of these combined problems and the vacuum which exists regarding the promotion of women's issues, which led to the formation of the Bogside and Brandywell Women's Group in 1994.

We are a voluntary organisation with women from diverse backgrounds and experience, ranging from teachers and students to those who have been involved in community development work for many years.

The Women's Group has to date been instrumental in the creation of many projects aiming to address some of the problems touching the lives of women in this area and we provide information, advice and signposting on a wide range of issues affecting women and their families.

BBWG is managed by a committee which is made up of local women with a range of skills, some of whom have been involved with work in the community for many years. The committee includes a chairperson, vice chairperson, secretary, and two treasurers. There are sub-groups within the committee which work on specific issues e.g. funding, education and training, research, and social provision etc. The group has one full time worker (Development Worker), one Part- time Administrator and eight volunteers.