This year marks an incredible, historic milestone for Anawim, an organization that has served as a sanctuary, a lifeline, and a beacon of hope for women in Balsall Heath, is celebrating its 40th anniversary.
Liz Berry captures the spirit of Anawim’s mission, honouring the unsung, resilient women of Balsall Heath and Birmingham:
Psalm (after Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Psalm III’)
Illuminate all women. Beginning with Balsall Heath, at dawn. With the ghost of Sister Maisie bringing tea to the sex workers; with the women in red aprons laying out jigsaws in the nursery; the cleaners coming home from Corporation Street on the 50, eyes flickering shut in the heater’s warmth. Illuminate the nurses leaving for the early shift, windscreen wipers on, radio crooning; the mothers cutting toast into triangles, stepping toddlers from their wet pyjamas; the girl making love, eyes closed, still half-asleep, feeling water rise through her like the cut being thawed. Illuminate the insomniacs in their kitchens in the fading dark, night nearly behind them; the college girls and their sisters, asleep in shared box rooms, phones in hand, always waiting for his message. Inshallah. The woman who begs for money at the Middleway junction, scabs on her wrists and round her mouth like poppies; the one who dozes in a tent in the bushes, the one so thin with a little star tattooed on her cheek and her eyebrows painted black. Illuminate the women praying; the women doing yoga foreheads to the floor in child’s pose; the old women who lie stiff with arthritis, remembering, as girls, how frost furred the inside of the windows, wondering how early they can ring their daughters; daughters boiling kettles and stripping bedsheets, turning on the radio to Kath, in her windowless studio: “Good morning, Birmingham, I’m with you all the way until 6 …” Illuminate them all. Let the buried Rea be a blast of light.
LIZ BERRY
Liz Berry’s collections of poems include Black Country, 2014, The Republic of Motherhood, 2018, and The Home Child, 2023.
Anawim is celebrating forty years – check out their 40th Anniversary Day – Joy Doal MBE, CEO, tell us their story:
Anawim was founded by two pioneering nuns, Sister Magdalene Matthews and Sister Maisie Nevin, who belonged to the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. Sister Magdelene had been working with alcoholics in Balsall Heath and Maisie with young people, but both were searching for something more.
They met women doing street ministry, joined them and immediately felt a calling to work with the women they saw on the streets nearby. The pair opened their home on Mary Street as a drop-in centre to women in Balsall Heath who were involved in sex work and vulnerable to exploitation.
Anawim 40th Celebration Save the Date 3rd July!
The Sisters’ Safe Space
Mary Street was then part of the traditional “red light” area of the city with sex workers on the streets and in around 25 houses used as brothels. The Sisters were struck by the difference it made for women to have a safe space, a warm drink and a listening ear. A place they could go without fear of judgement, to meet other women who cared deeply about their wellbeing. In a matter of two years their contact with women had increased so much – through hospitality at their house in Mary Street and outreach – they decided the time had come to devote all of their time to this Mission.
Looking for Life Transformation
During the day, the Sisters would attend court with the women or accompany them to Social Services conferences, visit them in their homes, hostels or prison. Health and Probation soon became aware of the Sisters, and the local churches were very supportive. The first two women to regularly come to the Mary Street house had stopped sex work and were soon followed by others. Their children were cared for in the front room and in the back room the women were offered literacy training, budgeting, crafts and parenting skills. This was the beginning of the ‘Women’s Development Centre’.
Around this time the Balsall Heath Forum started Streetwatch, the campaign to discourage both those working on the streets, and the kerb crawlers. Women were harassed and sometimes hit with sticks – this had a dramatic effect – it drove them out of sight and made them more vulnerable to attacks. The Sisters, together with volunteers, had to search them out in surrounding areas – where vigilante groups also sprang up.
Maisie, Balsall Heath 1989
Sister Maisie, 1986, 166 Mary Street – a safe space for all women
‘Safe House’ to ‘Development Centre’
In 1994 a Safe House was opened after requests from the women who had left, and lay staff were employed with the help of a lottery grant and funding from the Anglican Church Urban Fund. When the need for larger premises to house the ‘Women’s Development Centre’, became apparent this was closed.
To provide the space required, the present centre in Mary Street was rented from St John and St Martin church and opened in January 1999. By 2002 it was under threat of closure. This was due to lack of funds, the ‘client group’ of sex workers being moved on, the project struggling to meet new women, changes in the political climate and legislation such as ASBOs.
At this time Sister Lizanne was visiting Brockhill Prison and meeting lots of women there, but they were very different to the ones back in Balsall Heath. An integration came when they employed Joy Doal as manager in 2003. Through fundraising to employ staff, co-ordinating volunteers, entering into partnership with the SAFE project to co-locate their methadone programme and development of alternatives to custody with Probation, ANAWIM began to grow.
One-stop centre for all
Anawim became a pioneering one-stop centre for women who were either in the sex industry, at risk of being there, or were involved in offending. Outreach workers went out at night to reach the sex workers who had been dispersed across the city and in-reach took place at HMP Eastwood Park and HMP Brockhill, where Birmingham women were often sent, offering support while there and a place to come on release.
Many women have banded together, over 40 years, to grow Anawim into the charity it is today – an organisation that remains true to our founding ethos and now works with thousands of women every year. Anawim has an open access drop-in and specialist services to meet the needs of women from all parts of the city.
At the charity we believe anyone can find themselves in difficulty or experience trauma – whether that’s living in an abusive relationship, battling addiction, involved in crime or sex work – or simply struggling with life. Our staff can make a huge difference in helping women to try to change their lives – step by step.
Working with Women whatever their situation
We work with women at every stage of the criminal justice system, from first offence to prison. Our open access drop-in is available for any woman who needs it for any reason, and our main room remains a space where people can come for a cup of tea and a chat.
While funding will always be an ongoing challenge, we’ll do everything we can to keep Anawim’s doors open for women and be part of the fabric of Balsall Heath. For support, for friendship, for a safe space.
