WebMarApr18

www.westendermagazine.com | 49
communities – we’d watch our mother or
grandmother or great-grandmother, we’d
see how they managed their lives and their
relationships. Nowadays, women don’t have
that experience. So we wanted to create
a hub bringing women together to share
experiences.’
The workshops aim to challenge the ‘negative
voices in our heads that tell us we’re not good
enough’. Women are invited to participate
in guided discussions about self-esteem,
setting boundaries, self-awareness and
cultivating healthy relationships – life skills
which can be forgotten through hard times or
which mightn’t have been taught to us at all.
With a focus on self-care, Sylvia and Louise
are keen to emphasise that despite its
new buzzword status, they mean it in the
most practical sense of the term. ‘A lot of
people think it’s putting moisturiser on, but
it goes a lot deeper than that. Self-care is
not a reward,’ Sylvia says. ‘It’s you giving
yourself permission to say, “I am responsible
for taking care of myself”. Your GP
appointments, your smear tests, your dental
check-ups, all of that. ‘It’s about mental
health, physical health and social wellbeing.’
Sylvia, who grew up in care units, was
inspired by her own experiences to
establish the social enterprise. Now also
training other organisations to deliver the
programme she designed, she says it was
only following her own recovery that she
realised the importance of prioritising ones
own wellbeing. She adds, ‘You get to a point
where you’ve been through so much in your
life that you don’t tend to believe you deserve
good things. It’s almost like dimming your
own light – society doesn’t benefit, your
family doesn’t benefit, and most importantly
you don’t benefit. I thought it would be really
great to have a women-only space where you
could look at the fundamentals of rebuilding
yourself.’
launching new four-hour one-off workshops,
aiming to cater for women who are unable
to commit to the eight weeks of workshops
offered on the programme.
‘Most of the women who do our courses have
been through trauma, but I actually think
most women have. We’ve all got… stuff,’ says
Louise when considering the new intake of
women for these shorter workshops. ‘I’m
so glad women are talking but we need to
ensure we have the tools to navigate these
issues in the community on a daily basis.’
There is no referral system as such, she says,
but women hear about MsMissMrs through
local partners like GPs and other groups who
are prominent in women’s recovery.
As well as supporting women, the social
enterprise does preventative work with girls.
Having developed a 72-page workbook,
they encourage 11 to 13-year-old girls to
think about difficult communication, setting
boundaries, self-esteem, body image and
stress – and discuss it with their peers.
They’ve been working with Knightswood
Secondary School and have received an
enthusiastic response. ‘We talk to young girls
and they’re so tired already,’ says Sylvia. ‘You
can’t underestimate the impact social media
and those daily comparisons have. But really,
I don’t think there’s an age limit on the book.
These issues follow you.’
Moving forward, MsMissMrs want to make
their self-awareness programmes as
accessible as possible to any women who
might benefit from their services, as well as
reaching more girls with their workbook. Until
then, it’s clear that the hub will stay full to the
brim with support, laughs, empowerment –
and pants.
msmissmrs.co.uk
MsMissMrs is largely funded by the sale
of their signature ‘empowerment pants’ –
ethically-manufactured underwear designed
with the idea of women-as-their-ownsuperheroes
in mind. Over 3,000 pairs have
sold to date. The revenue generated from
these is partly why the organisation is now