10 Downing Street responds to Save Southall Black Sisters' petition

Number 10 Downing Street has responded to the petition to Save Southall Black Sisters, the charitable organization with expertise in the issue of domestic violence in the Black and minority women’s communities.
Read the petition:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to urge the Department for Communities and Local Government to clarify it’s position on 'community cohesion' in relation to organisations providing non-generic, essential services to vulnerable people, such as those provided by Southall Black Sisters, a pioneering secular organisation that supports women victims of domestic violence from a wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds in Ealing Southall and beyond. More details
Submitted by Jessica Southgate – Deadline to sign up by: 06 May 2008 – Signatures: 902
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveSBS/


And the response from number 10 Downing Street:
Savesbs - epetition reply
13 June 2008
We received a petition asking:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to urge the Department for Communities and Local Government to clarify it's position on 'community cohesion' in relation to organisations providing non-generic, essential services to vulnerable people, such as those provided by Southall Black Sisters, a pioneering secular organisation that supports women victims of domestic violence from a wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds in Ealing Southall and beyond."
Details of Petition:
"Southall Black Sisters, a pioneering and pre-eminent organisation for women victims of domestic violence from black and ethnic minority communities, is facing possible closure if Ealing Council goes ahead with a plan to cut its core funding from 1st April 2008. Ealing Council's decision is based on the view that Southall Black Sisters is a 'single group' organisation and therefore promotes segregation within the community. This view fails to take account of two things: 1. SBS is a secular organisation, helping women from a wide variety of religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, by empowering them to access what are universal human rights. 2. SBS possesses the specialist knowledge and experience to reach and help this broad range of women, who, due to their social, economic and cultural backgrounds, can be among the most marginalised and voiceless women in British society."
· Read the petition
· Petition's home page
Read the Government's response
We recognise the good work Southall Black Sisters have done in the local community and the national impact that they have had.
In February of this year we published a consultation document on cohesion guidance for funders, setting out how building relationships with people from different backgrounds helps to ensure stronger community relations, as well as identifying some risks run by work focused only on a particular group. We published a consultation rather than final guidance as we want to learn from the experience of funders and funded organisations and develop the guidance in line with the commitment in the Compact on relations between Government and the Voluntary and Community Sector to consult on issues affecting the sector. We stated in our guidance that there may be reasons for different consideration on funding organisations that help tackle domestic violence and would encourage funders to take this guidance into account when making their decisions.
Further Information
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page15744.asp