Volunteers’ Week: Spotlight on Project Hope

Do you want to make a difference but think you are too busy to be able to volunteer? This Volunteers’ Week (3rd – 9th June) we’re highlighting one of the opportunities on offer at SATEDA which can be done anywhere, takes very little time, and makes a massive difference.

Project Hope is our letter writing initiative which aims to combat isolation among women in UK prisons, where 2 in 3 women are domestic abuse survivors.

Launched in summer 2020, when we found out that the Covid pandemic meant prisoners were being kept in their cells for 23 hours a day and going without family visits, Project Hope was the brainchild of a SATEDA volunteer who was herself locked up because of her abusive ex-partner.

Volunteers write encouraging letters, cards and poems that let women behind bars know that someone is thinking about them and they are not alone. Every year we send over 2,000 messages of hope to four women’s prisons across the UK, giving recipients the option of starting a correspondence. Our writers use only their first name or a pen name and all letters exchanged come through us.

All we ask of our Project Hope volunteers is that they commit to writing five letters or cards a month. We’re particularly keen to recruit more younger women to correspond with prisoners around their own age.

To get involved in Project Hope please register your interest at sateda.org.