Reform’s Women’s Safety Champion: Farwa

Meet Farwa who is Reform Radio’s Operations Coordinator and Women’s Safety Lead, as appointed by ‘Women’s Night-time Safety Charter’ programme. We caught up with her to take a look at her journey from day one at Reform to her elevation into her current position.

Please introduce yourself and tell us one fun fact about yourself?

Hi, my name is Farwa, I’m Operations Coordinator at Reform Radio & I love making fresh flower jewellery and balancing that out by training Muay Thai.

Describe yourself in 3 words?

Upbeat, grounded and straightforward.

How did you get involved with Reform?

Funnily enough, during an old job my manager told me all about Reform. I saw that they had a few courses that could really help me develop my skills and confidence over lockdown so I just dived in.

What were you up to before joining Reform?

Before I joined Reform, I was studying Literature at a university and was a Culture Editor of the Arts & Humanities magazine ‘aAh!’ – A big focus for me during this time was diversifying the content by writing reviews & interviewing zine-makers from across the world about their passions and inspirations.

How did you get into literature and what are your inspirations for the future?

I actually got into literature because I thought it would be a good stepping stone into traditional journalism. Since then, I’ve been exposed to so many different ways of sharing stories, through audio as well as writing, so I’m excited to see what’s next for me creatively.

You’ve been appointed Reform’s ‘Women’s Safety Champion’ – can you tell us a bit more about this?

I put myself forward for this position because I wanted to make sure we’re prioritising the safety of all women, creating safe spaces and encouraging organisations and people to become active bystanders, and stepping in in the case of any unwanted advances or harassment.

Why is the topic of women’s safety important to you?

The topic of women’s safety is really important to me because unfortunately women have become used to identifying potential threats or attempts of intimidation, and now sort of expect it when out, and I’d like to help be a force for change when it comes to women feeling safe at work and otherwise. While we hope that we wouldn’t have to monitor our safety, it seems there are some unwritten rules that we all live by; like faking a call in a taxi or crossing the road at night when around big groups.

Manchester City Council held an open information and training session detailing what the ‘Women’s Night-time Safety Charter’ programme is, what’s on offer and what businesses can do. We chatted to Candi Wallace, who is part of the Safety Team at Manchester City Council.

Please introduce yourself?

My name is Candi Wallace. I work for the Safety Team at Manchester City Council and I’m the Violence Against Women and Girls Lead for the City Council. I’ve been leading on various initiatives that we’ve launched over the last few months for women’s and girls’ safety across the city.

Can you tell us a bit more about the training sessions?

The training is a free offer for all organisations that pledge up to the Women’s Night-time Safety Charter. The Night-time Safety Charter was launched officially about four weeks ago. It’s based on the London model, which we have adapted to suit Manchester.

The training is just part of it, it’s really around raising awareness of what sexual assault and harassment is, across all of our sectors. It’s an offer to those who pledge to try and upskill staff, give them a bit more time to understand how to respond better to situations or scenarios they may enter and even consider their own policies.

When you say ‘women’, is this inclusive of non-binary & trans people?

We are including all women, LGBT community. Absolutely. We have specialist services to the LGBT community. We’re very fortunate in Manchester that we have got a really wide range of services that represent all our communities. If we have men who are victims, we have services that can pick that up and can refer, signpost or support them too. 

What are the future goals for this programme?

We are really just trying to make sure we skill up as many people as possible from across all of our organisations so that they can help their own staff and customers. We are trying to create awareness for everyone, which we hope will create more safe spaces across the city. Giving people the ability to help identify what sexual assault and harassment is. We all have a lot to learn from each other. Over the next few months we hope to only upscale our efforts and to reach everyone.