Organiser: Surt Foundation.
Collaborating organisation: Ramon Molinas Foundation.
Dates of implementation: 01/12/2015 – 01/12/2016.
Sirga, a project to help women victims of gender-based violence
The Ramon Molinas Foundation has collaborated alongside the Surt Foundation with the objective of launching Sirga, a refuge shelter for the recovery and empowerment of women, and their children, who suffer from or have been victims of gender-based violence and forced to leave their domestic home. Sirga offers temporary refuge to guarantee a safe space, protection and assistance in order to facilitate the recuperation of women and their children. This recovery also helps to boost the process of women’s empowerment, using a comprehensive approach to address personal, economic and social factors. For the minors who are incorporated into the project, the objective is to ensure them of a space where they can grow and develop without violence and provide them with role models on interpersonal relationships and living together.
Sirga is a refuge shelter in the Vallès Occidental area which has the capacity to take in 10 family units. According to figures from the year 2013, there are 11 refuge shelters for victims of gender-based violence financed by the Department of Social Welfare and Family which offer places to a total of 38 family units in Catalonia. From these 11 shelters, 5 are located in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. Together with the places that the Surt Foundation offers as part of the Sirga project, the metropolitan area of Barcelona will have 34 places available to protect victims of gender-based violence.
Empowerment for a life free of violence
To carry out the project Sirga, the Surt Foundation works with an intervention model based on empowerment for a life free of violence. The process encourages awareness and an increase in autonomy and authority over the recourses and decisions which affect the lives of these women, on both an individual level and a social and community level. Empowerment becomes a dynamic process, carried out by the women themselves.
In Sirga, women become conscious of their rights. In addition, they learn to identify the situations and causes of discrimination and violence in order to strengthen their abilities and put the processes of change into action that will allow them to develop the personal autonomy they need to manage their lives independently.
The scheme offers group work with the aim of working on emotions and values, without excluding individual therapy to encourage the development of personal, work, social and familial autonomy. Sirga manages a space where women and their children have an active and participatory role, accentuating their voices, their needs and their hopes.
Sirga, a communal space which guarantees privacy
Located in the region of Vallès Occidental, Sirga is a space for recovering the personal autonomy of the women who stay there. It is a communal space, with the best environment for developing activities alongside other residents but with private spaces to guarantee the privacy and re-establishment of the inner universe of the nuclear family. Sirga has a professional available 24 hours of the day and a therapeutic care programme with the aim of ensuring the correct pace of care for each person according to their needs.
The programme is for women who suffer from or who have been victims of any type of gender-based violence, as part of a couple, in a family environment or a social environment. Women who stay at the shelter may have suffered sexual assault, sex trafficking or exploitation, female genital mutilation or be at risk of female genital mutilation and forced marriage. Broadly speaking, the women are adults with children, who at an early stage have already been through an emergency placement, and, having gone through this process, now do not have alternative safe accommodation available, a familial network to help them, nor do they possesses the financial recourses to cover their needs.
The Surt Foundation, an organisation with more than 20 years of experience
The Surt Foundation was created in 1993 with the name The Women’s Association for Labour Integration. Its objective was to facilitate the incorporation of women into the labour market, especially those who were in a position of vulnerability due to their social, cultural or personal circumstances. 14 years later, in 2007, the association become the Surt Foundation.
Today, the organisation wants to develop into a project for social transformation, committed to women in their efforts to construct a society based on gender equality. A society in which men and women are equal in their rights and opportunities, without discrimination or subordination.
Gender-based violence robbed the lives of 51 women in Spain in the year 2014 alone
A total of 51 women were murdered by their partners or ex-partners in Spain in the year 2014, according to figures released by the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality. Of these crimes, 12 occurred in Catalonia and only 31.4% of the victims had filed a police report for violence against women.
According to the Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence, the same year 126,747 denunciations of abuse were reported, which is an average of 347 denunciations per day. In the same period, the courts carried out a total of 46,131 sentences, of which 61.2% were found guilty, and 22,807 protection orders were issued. However, 12.4% of the women who filed a complaint, decided to withdraw it.
A confidential helpline was set up in 2007 to provide information and advice regarding gender-based violence. The number is 016, it is free and will not show up on your phone bill.
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