REAL Women

REAL (Resilient, empowered, ambitious leaders) Women is a not for profit (unincorporated) organisation for women in Lanarkshire. It was co-founded by Sharon Bissett & Judith Bremner who realised that there was a need in Lanarkshire for this type of support for a women of a particular age. Both co-founders fall into this ‘age’ and have worked within the community and voluntary sector for over 15 years so were well aware of the issues facing women in our communities. REAL Women was set up in May 2018 but only started offering activities in October 2018 as a result of successful funding from the Big Lottery and Women's Fund Scotland Tampon Tax Fund.

Our beneficiaries are primarily women in the 30 – 50+ age group, (however we welcome women out with that bracket too). We knew that women in this age group often get forgotten about unless they fall into another issue based category. We also knew that women who would normally fall into the 50+ category often don’t feel old enough to get involved in the 50+ activity groups, they are still very active both physically and emotionally.

The 30’s – 50’s can be a challenging time for women, and is usually when we find ourselves having to deal with a variety of life changes e.g. separation & divorce, empty nest syndrome, menopause to name a few. These life changes can have a significant effect on women’s mental health. That resilience we had in our 20’s and early 30’s can deplete, confidence and motivation reduces, and stress increases and we can find it generally harder to cope, which can lead to more serious mental health issues. This can have a huge negative impact on our personal and working lives. We aim to give women a new lease of life, a purpose and the motivation to live life to the full. We will do this by providing an array of activities which will build their resilience, confidence and self-esteem and empower them to create the lives they want and be better able to deal with the challenges that life throws at them. We also aim to provide relevant support and information on issues affecting women e.g. menopause, weight gain and loneliness to name a few.

Currently we facilitate a fortnightly walking group and ‘blether’ meetups and we held our first ever International Women’s day in March 2019 and it was very successful. We also recently started our REAL Women’s Book Club with meetings held monthly and we also have an online Menopause Support Group. We also offer monthly workshops covering a variety of issues/topics and these are very popular. We currently have workshops booked until November 2019 with next years in the pipeline. We are planning ladies days, social events and many others in the coming months. We have lots of ideas given to us from our participants via what will be an annual needs survey, and so far they have included most of the above as well as various fundraising activities, social and educational trips and many more.