“She has returned transformed from her journey, she is changed, awakened, authentic. She has discovered her sense of belonging to both herself and her community. She inspires others with her stories and her gifts; she is a Changemaker, an Inspired Woman.”
Sally Bonnie Founder Inspire Women Oldham
Our journey began in 2007 when a woman began her search for herself and her community. By 2012 she had connected with many women who were searching for a different way to live their lives. We made a commitment to work together, share our gifts, and give back to other women and the community. In 2013 we registered Inspiring Futures Partnership as a Community Interest Company ~ never giving up, with passion and determination at the heart of everything we did. 2015 was life changing, the Lottery launched the Women and Girls Fund, we felt like we had won the Lottery when we were awarded £250,000, and the start of another amazing journey began. Inspire has created and facilitates a beautiful Women’s Centre in the heart of Oldham town centre, our work being recognised locally in the Pride in Oldham Awards, and nationally through the Women in Housing Awards. The Centre is open to all women aged over 16 and who live in Oldham, women organising themselves around their awakening gifts, passion and emerging purpose.
We focus on what is present, not what is absent in women; we facilitate, creating opportunities for connection in a beautiful welcoming space. A space that is based on kindness, compassion and equality of power with humility at its heart. We see the wholeness and potential in women, not what is broken and it is from this space that we begin our connection.
In this space women have re-discovered their voice, changed their language, become equal, free to pursue ideas, to shape and re-shape, to co-produce the organisation. We have pioneered an approach and a model that has both nurtured and empowered women to develop, establish and run a Centre where all Facilitators were once Members.
We identified that in order to change the world, or at least our part of it we needed women first to change ourselves, which is how our WomenFirst Changemakers concept was born, back in 2012. We needed women to change how they told and shared their stories about who we were. Our label filled stories did not serve us as women, we were seeking a new way, or maybe we are just re-birthing an old way? When we share stories that are based on strength it opens up an amazing space from where women can live a different story, and where her voice is heard. This is the “Inspire” way and we hope that we can Inspire you to write a different story too.