Latest statistics reveal that 1 woman is killed every 3 days and 1 in 40 women aged 16-24 have experienced rape or sexual assault in the last year.

For Black women, the figures are higher, with Sistah Space reporting 86% of their service-users from African or Caribbean heritage having experienced domestic abuse, only 57% of them having reported it to the police. Isolated migrant and refugee women, LGBTQ+ women and other minoritised groups are even more likely to experience abuse and less likely to reach out for support – through lack of awareness, language, confidence or trust that they will be listened to and believed.

At The Maya Centre, we see the impact of abuse – recent and historical, physical verbal, individual, family, societal and institutional – on a woman’s mental health, and on her wider confidence and aspirations in life.  Depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, self-harm… all of these can be traced back to multiple experiences of oppression in a woman’s life, often compounded by other external factors like racism, poverty, immigration, single parenting, health inequalities – or basic, everyday sexism.  

As a specialist counselling organisation, our Impact is first and foremost about improving women’s mental health – but our intercultural and intersectional approach means that we must be aware of what this means at every level, if we are to help a woman recover her identity and purpose in life, if we are to change the way women’s mental health is understood and funded – and if we are to find a collective voice which stands up to inequality and abuse of power in all its forms. 

The following sections of our website help you to see our work in more detail, and explore the progress we are making in addressing this complex issue. Thank you for your interest and support.