One YMCA - Dignify

engage equip empower

Registered Charity 1102301

One YMCA - Dignify Give
Youth
Family &
Relationships
Mental Health
& Wellbeing

Dignifys mission is to engage, equip and empower local communities to build and share a new narrative for healthy relationships where porn is not normalised. Dignify is saying lets talk about porn. Together as a community, we can help children and young people thrive, free from the sexual objectification that porn can normalise. Born from a local collaboration with a passion to keep our children safe, we work to equip and empower young people to make the best, safest, and healthiest choices in relationships and online.

In June 2021, Ofsted published its review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges. It reports that sexual harassment has been normalised in schools, and that schools should assume that every student is impacted by it. More than 90% of girls and 74% of boys said that sexist name-calling happens a lot or sometimes to them or their peers. Nearly 90% of girls and nearly 50% of boys said that they or their peers have been sent explicit pictures or videos of things they did not want to see. This is a national problem and most parents and teachers are not equipped to effectively address it with young people.

Every parent and teacher wants to keep their children safe from abuse, but many people are not sure exactly how to do this. Dignify aims to ward off this danger before it starts by educating and empowering young people to understand sexual objectification and healthy relationships. We work with primary and secondary schools across Hertfordshire, delivering lessons about healthy relationships in schools, and workshops to parents and teachers to help them best support the young people in their care.

Our provision has been so well-received and is so desperately needed that we have a waiting list longer than we can deliver right now! We want to be able to provide Dignify lessons and workshops in every school asking for them, but our current staff are just not able to be everywhere. Although schools pay towards our provision, school budgets are simply not able to cover the full cost of our work, or enable us to increase our delivery. With more funding, we will be able to increase our provision and deliver our sought-after content in every school that requests it. We hate being in a position where only certain children are being kept safe - we dont want anyone to miss out!

We will be so grateful for any support you can give to Dignify.

Whether thats through partnering, prayer, volunteering, giving, or championing this cause, we want you to know that your contribution will make a difference.

Thank you.