Commissioning Body or Individual: Jewish Women's Aid
Year: 2008
About the Commisioner(s): Jewish Women's Aid is the only specialist organisation in the UK supporting Jewish women and children affected by domestic abuse & sexual violence. Jewish Women's Aid (JWA) was founded to support the thousands of Jewish women who, each year, will face physical, emotional, psychological, sexual or economic abuse from within their own close family. We now also support Jewish women affected by sexual violence.
Website: https://www.jwa.org.uk/
‘And for Years After’ for Jewish Woman’s Aid
For Jewish Woman’s Aid and Baroness Scotland of Asthal’s End Domestic Violence Global Foundation, I wrote a suite of poems entitled ‘And for Years After’ which appeared as a section of my 2010 volume The Assay.
And for Years After
You’re free and loved
You’ll recognise the victim
Who says I cause it…
My problem is…
Or whose children
Show the fear
She thinks she’s hiding.
And for years after
When you’re free
Giving love not lip-service
You’ll know your worth
Your heart and how to prove hope
To the victim. You’ll whisper
As you hold her you’re safe now
Your hands can mould your future
If you take them away from your face.