CCChat-Magazine_Issue-27-Survivors-Speak

Sam Billingham
Founder of SODA
S
amantha
Billingham is a survivor and a prominent
campaigner who started a support group. She also
writes a column for a local newspaper.
M: You’re the founder of SODA and a prominent campaigner in the UK, could
you tell me a little of how SODA came about?
S: When I escaped my abusive relationship back in 2006, I had a 10 month old
daughter. I enrolled us both in all the groups that were available, at a local
Sure Start centre, because I wanted my daughter to mix with other children. A
volunteer coordinator there planted a seed and I ended up volunteering at that
same Sure Start. One day she asked me if I had ever thought about helping
others and I remember thinking that no, I'd never thought of that. Because at
that point in my life, I hadn’t thought of anything really, I was just trying to
find my feet again, but the more I thought about helping others, the more I
wanted to because, during my own personal experience, I had no one there to
help me, I had no helpline number, I never saw a poster, there was just
nothing and I just wanted to be the support that I never had really. SODA,
which stands for Survivors of Domestic Abuse, started off as a Facebook group
and there are now just over 800 members worldwide who use the support
group as a safe haven. They come into the group, they can chat openly with
people who really understand what they're experiencing and what they're
going through, so that really was the start of SODA.
M: Wow, that's amazing. I remember, it would have been in 2011, I was
advised by a social worker to go on a Freedom Programme course, so she
obviously recognised that I was a victim of abuse even though, at the time, it
hadn’t really occurred to me. When I was on the course, there were all these
SODA posters on the wall.
S: Wow. Wow, that's amazing. Gosh, I'd never heard of Freedom Programme
when I left my relationship. The support I had was an eight week awareness
course and I had to do it, because I was referred by social services. I didn't
want to do it, but obviously, social services were involved and if I didn't do it, I
was just fearful that they would take my daughter away from me.
Making The Invisible Visible