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Women and girls should feel, and be, safe everywhere – and we’re working to do what we can to make that happen.
Ending all forms of violence, abuse and harm against women and girls is one of the most pressing challenges facing us today. It is also a priority in the NI Executive’s Programme for Government.
In Belfast, we’re supporting the NI Executive to roll out their Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy (link opens in new window).
The strategy highlights how violence is never acceptable and that there is something everyone can do to help.
We want to show how Belfast is stepping up to this challenge and is working together to tackle an issue which impacts everyone in our city.
Our work includes:
From January to March 2025, we provided free training for Belfast-based community and voluntary organisations who want to better understand the issues around ending violence against women and girls and how they can support this work.
Training took place at various locations across the city and was free to attend. Each training course ran for three sessions and included:
We hope to run more training courses in the future and further details will be added here, once confirmed.
For more information, email [email protected].
Events took place across Belfast in March 2025, reflecting specific priorities in each part of the city.
These events were co-designed with local organisations and included input from community groups, advice and women’s centres, working with our area teams and community centre staff.
Examples included a walk around Waterworks in north Belfast, followed by a community fun day, a panel discussion in east Belfast and community workshops in south Belfast, exploring issues like sexual harassment and victim blaming.
In March 2025, we organised for sports clubs and coaches to come together and look at how they can support men and boys specifically in tackling violence against women and girls.
The conference included talks from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), White Ribbon NI and others, as well as practical workshops to help clubs challenge poor behaviour, promote positive attitudes and start a conversation about this important issue.
For more information about our It’s a Team Effort conference, email [email protected].
We provided free personal safety events in our community centres during January and February 2025.
These empowering sessions provided practical self-defence skills and information to improve confidence and self-awareness. They were organised following feedback from our centre users.
Try-it events with local martial arts clubs are also planned, so women can continue on with their practice after these first events.
We will add further dates and times for classes in spring 2025 to this page, once confirmed.
This is a new grant scheme for community and voluntary groups to deliver projects, by 31 March 2026, to end violence against women and girls in Belfast.
Together, the projects will help to change the attitudes, behaviours and culture of violence against women and girls, promote healthy, respectful relationships and help women and girls to feel, and be, safe everywhere.
There were three tiers of funding available:
Applications for grants closed on Monday 17 February (Tier 2 and Tier 3) and Friday 28 February (Tier 1).
We will add the successful applicants here once funding has been allocated.
Eight organisations will also share £1.2 million of funding from the Executive Office to deliver society-wide change when it comes to tackling violence against women and girls. We are supporting the administration of this fund.
The organisations are (all links open in a new window):
There are agencies and confidential services that can support you if you’re experiencing violence or feel unsafe. Contact details are available from nidirect (link opens in new window).
The PSNI, Department of Justice and NI Executive have launched the Power to Change campaign, which is urging men and boys to help play their part in affecting cultural and societal change.
To read more about this campaign, go to Power to Change (link opens in new window)
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