Final round of the £11.25 Tampon Tax Fund announced

• Women in Sport, Tommy’s and Imkaan among those receiving grants
• Four heroes helping disadvantaged women receive Prime Minister’s Points of Light Award

Thousands of women and girls will benefit as 14 charities have been confirmed to receive a share of the final round of the Government’s £11.25 million Tampon Tax Fund.

Projects helping victims of domestic abuse, improving postpartum safety and empowering women through physical activity are among those chosen to benefit from the new grants.

The UK-wide grants generated from the VAT on period products, will be directly invested in vital projects tackling issues facing women and girls.

Over the last six years, the Tampon Tax Fund has awarded £79 million, with this final round bringing the total to £90.25 million.

In March last year, the Chancellor announced that following the UK’s departure from the EU on 1st January 2021, the EU 5% VAT charge on period products would be removed, permanently reducing associated costs for these products.

At the same time, the Prime Minister has announced the latest Points of Light awards are being awarded to four individuals who have made exceptional contributions towards helping disadvantaged women and girls, helping to reduce period poverty and improving gender equality.

The Points of Light award winners include Katrina McDonnell, who runs Homeless Period Belfast to alleviate period poverty in the city’s homeless community. Molly Fenton, who runs Love Your Period campaign to reduce stigma and period poverty in schools across Wales will also receive the Prime Minister’s award, while Laura and Julia Coryton, who led the original Stop Taxing Periods campaign and now run social enterprise Sex Ed Matters have all been recognised for their inspirational work through the Prime Minister’s prestigious award.

Laura Coryton’s campaign Stop Taxing Periods, which started as a petition in 2014 and attracted over 320,000 supporters and worldwide attention, led the government to end VAT on period products, and subsequently start the Tampon Tax Fund. Since the success of the campaign, she continues to campaign on gender equality issues, working with her twin sister Julia to improve relationships and sex education through their social enterprise ‘Sex Ed Matters’, which holds workshops in over 56 schools across the UK.

The 14 projects receiving grants through the Tampon Tax Fund are:

• The Big Give Trust’s ‘Women and Girls Match Fund’ – To raise £5m for the Women & Girls sector across England and Scotland through match funding campaigns whilst increasing the resilience, skills and profile of Women & Girls charities. The project will also help to create a long-term philanthropic legacy for giving to Women & Girls organisations.
• Tommy’s ‘Equality in miscarriage and pregnancy care’ – Tommy’s project aims to tackle the unjust miscarriage inequalities facing disadvantaged and underrepresented women across England. By supporting them with personalised advice and empowering them to advocate for their own care, Tommy’s will give these groups equity in access to care, otherwise unavailable, and reduce their risk of miscarriage.
• Women in Sport’s ‘Big Sister’ – To break down entrenched barriers to healthy, happy and active lives through a supportive ecosystem of ‘Big Sister’ peers and coaches mobilising participation in sport for young women and girls. Targeting those areas characterised by deprivation, Women in Sport aim to ensure no one is excluded from the lifelong empowerment of physical activity.
• St Giles Trust’s ‘Women Rising, Enabling Neighbourhoods’ – To enable disadvantaged women to create positive change for themselves and other women in their communities. St Giles Trust will work with local women’s organisations in priority areas to test if a lived experience, Community Champions model at grassroots level has an impact and provides solutions to social, economic, and digital exclusion.
• The Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief’s ‘STEP forward’ – Step Forward will address key barriers to integration specific to women refugees in line with the Home Office’s Integration Framework. Through this holistic, tailored programme, women refugees will be empowered to gain independence, make informed decisions, improve health outcomes, and move towards employment, and a fully integrated life in Britain.
• National Literacy Trust’s ‘Game Changers: Trailblazing Women’ – This project will use the excitement and passion of sport to inspire and motivate excluded girls who have experienced violence and trauma, to develop their communication skills, improve their confidence and resilience, enabling them to make better choices with stronger relationships for safer futures.
• Best Beginnings and White Ribbon Alliance UK’s ‘Safer Beginners’ – Safer Beginnings aims to improve maternity outcomes and the postpartum safety of 70,950 women of whom 13,350 are women from ethnic minority communities in England, Wales and Scotland by 2023, by developing specialist information, services and interventions that enable self-advocacy in maternal safety from obstetric and domestic abuse/violence and FGM/FGC.
• Imkaan’s ‘Margin to Centre’- To deliver onward grants to specialist Black minoritised women’s organisations working to end violence against women and girls. To support their frontline operational and long-term sustainability work in ways that elevates and empowers them through social value-based grant making, considering intersectional needs and social justice aims.
• Trevi ‘South West Women’s Spark Project’ – Prevent women with multiple disadvantages being affected by violence and abuse; ultimately achieving a better-quality life. This will be accomplished through 24/7 support via a wrap-around outreach programme incorporating trauma-informed Assertive Outreach Practitioners, fast-track access to women-only supported accommodation, practical and therapeutic support, and a violence prevention programme in schools.
• AVA (Against Violence and Abuse)’s ‘In Safe Hands’ – The project will ensure that VAWG survivors have access to high quality trauma informed support to help them rebuild their lives after abuse, through supporting specialist women’s organisations to build and demonstrate a consistent, survivor led, holistic trauma informed approach.
• South West Grid for Learning Trust’s ‘Minerva’ – Create a ground-breaking UK wide AI tool for women suffering online abuse, including harmful content and intimate image abuse. Saving lives through linking patterns of online/offline abuse to alert women to imminent danger. Empowering women to seize control, report crimes, have intimate images removed, and access support to rebuild lives.
• Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre’s ‘The FEM Project’ – To pilot an innovative, cross-region approach to increasing accessibility and inclusivity of rape crisis support for 75 women survivors of sexual violence with learning difficulties and/or from BME communities across 7 local authority areas ranging from Central to North East Scotland, with the aim of mainstreaming into core service delivery.
• Welsh Women’s Aid’s ‘Sector Strength Cymru’ – To provide targeted support and open grant giving opportunities for Women’s Aid members across Wales that enable the development, testing and delivery of new high-quality services, activities, approaches, research, or technologies that have the overarching aim of improving the quality of life for women and girls impacted by violence against women.
• Training for Women Network’s ‘The Improve Project’- The project aims to improve the lives of vulnerable, disadvantaged and under-represented women and girls in areas of multiple deprivation across Northern Ireland, through education and skills programmes to improve their capacities and create a sense of safety and belonging.

Part of a longer press release at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/14-charities-to-receive-tampon-tax-funding

November 16, 2021