Lloyds Bank Foundation has awarded Savera UK with an unrestricted three-year grant of £75,000 to help deliver activities and initiatives that will further the organisation’s charitable purpose of ending HBA and harmful practices.

For the past few years, Savera UK has developed a long-term partnership with Lloyds Bank Foundation, with the organisation not only providing funds to allow us to further deliver our charitable purpose, but also providing us access to its development support.

This has assisted the charity’s strategic development, for example allowing it to work with experienced consultants to review and evaluate its Direct Intervention service, and to develop our organisation’s outcome monitoring and fundraising strategy.

Earlier funding was also used to deliver the ‘Setting the Story Straight’ campaign, which developed media guidelines for reporting on HBA and harmful practices and provide guidance on working safely and effectively with survivors to ensure their voices are heard.

Setting the Story Straight was funded as part of the Lloyds Bank Foundation Small Change Fund and examined how ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) and harmful culturally specific practices – such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage – were represented in the media.

The new funding will allow us to continue our vital work to help those at risk and under threat of HBA and harmful practices. It will also continue to provide us with further opportunities to enhance and develop our organisation strategically.

Afrah Qassim, Savera UK CEO and founder, said: “We are incredibly grateful to Lloyds Bank Foundation for this generous and vital grant. Unrestricted funds provide flexibility that allows us to allocate funding where it is most needed within the organisation’s core costs and projects.

“We have had a successful and strong relationship with the team at Lloyds Bank Foundation for a number of years now and appreciated their willingness to champion our work. We look forward to continuing to work with them to move closer to our goal of ending HBA and harmful practices for good.”