What We Do
We aim to journey with women, offering holistic, ongoing support in order to help them move forward towards safe, whole lives free from sex work and drug addiction.
Evening Outreach
Our evening outreach team is made up of volunteers; go out two or three times a week offering hot drinks, food and condoms, building relationships and encouraging women to access help in the daytime.
This is long term work. We aim to slowly build a trusting relationship with each woman and we encourage them to meet us during the day when more intensive help can be given.
Most of the women we work with, whose lives have changed for the better, we first met on Evening Outreach.
Our Support and Outreach workers establish caring relationships with women and provide ongoing support for as long as it is needed. We offer practical and emotional help.
Daytime Outreach
Our skilled staff understand the complexities of the women’s lives and help women address their multiple problems.
As well as one to one ongoing support, we offer the opportunity to belong; to be part of a community of women supporting and helping each other.
As Tanya, who we have known for 3 years, said to a very scared newcomer recently - “Don’t worry, you are one of us now.”
Sanctuary Drop-In
Without an address or telephone it can be hard to find women during the day who have asked for help at night. In February 2015 we opened a Daytime Sanctuary called “Joanna House”. This is a beautiful, safe place, near to where they work where women can come and access help.
Women can use the bath and washing machine. There are good quality second hand clothes and toiletries available as well as food.
For women leaving street work, boredom and loneliness can be a real problem, so Joanna House offers activities, company and a sense of belonging. Women whose lives have changed for the better will offer support to those still struggling.
The work at Joanna Project contributes greatly to the provision of services across Leeds. A wealth of expert knowledge with a recognised ‘hard-to-reach’ group has been built up over the years of Outreach.
Every week one of our team attends a meeting to represent the women and the particularly tangled web of difficult challenges facing them.
Can you support us?
Our work depends on volunteers, donations and fundraising.
