Ten Waves & Creative Wavers
- Beth Nunn
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Last month we completed our most recent Wave of Change programme, so we thought we'd take a look at our years of delivering this programme!
We first launched the Wave of Change in partnership with The Goodness Collective in March 2020. After a couple of initial in person sessions, we closed down along with the rest of the world, and quickly shifted our sessions online. This involved not only teaching the women taking part to use Zoom for sessions, but ourselves as well! We ran a total of 3 programmes during lockdown - bringing women together remotely to help support them through a very isolating time. Since starting to bring back in person sessions gradually in 2021, we have run a total of 10 programmes, as well as a number of 'sister' programmes supporting over 200 women in Stockport to move back to employment, training, volunteering or education.
We have recently completed both our 10th Wave of Change Programme, and our first Creative Wavers programme. Find out a little more about both of these programmes below.
Wave of Change 10
This Wave ran from September 2024 - January 2025, with 21 women supported during that time! Programme sessions ran at Friends Meeting House in Stockport and included:
Craft and wellbeing engagement sessions
challenging our limiting beliefs workshop
Social Action
Digital skills support sessions and coaching from Claire Worthington at Village Web Company
Planning and running a Christmas Community event
Accessing career workshops with different outside agencies - including Stockport Volunteer Hub, Stockport College and Smart Works
Career Coaching sessions led by Leanne Lorains
Access to 121 or group coaching sessions
This was part of a wider one year funded programme from WEA which incorporated this and Wave of Change 9. We were also able to offer additional wrap around support including wellbeing sessions, fortnightly 'Walking Wavers' events and additional access to wider Stockport support.
At the end of the programme we loved being able to provide all of our women with an Evolve Planner to help them self manage the next steps of their journey - this small family run business have been so supportive and we are excited to collaborate with them more in future projects. Check them out here! https://www.evolvejourney.co.uk/pages/about
Creative Wavers
This was a one year programme funded by Stockport Council via UKSPF funding. It focussed on supporting women looking to engage in creativity to either support their own wellbeing, explore other opportunities, make wider social and community connections or delve into the world of turning creativity into a career/ paid work! We also aimed to introduce local women to new creative community spaces.
Many sessions were led by women accessing the programme - giving them the opportunity to develop their own workshops and offers, and raise the profile of their own ventures. All sessions were led by Stockport based, female led organisations. Helping support women to support women.
At Christmas we ran a pop up shop with our friends at Make Build Grow, taking place at their Make Good space in Cheadle Heath. This allowed women to dip their toe into selling. Jen from MBG and Sarah Wilde then ran a series of group coaching sessions to support women to help monetise their creativity. At the end of the programme we ran a 'Create to Accelerate' event at What IF? Cafe, which was attended by over 50 local women.
Some exciting numbers from this programme:
- We ran 15 workshops and 2 large scale events as part of this programme.
- Sessions were accessed by over 60 local women.
- We introduced 11 new community spaces to the cohort, with 137 visits to new spaces over the course of the programme.
It has been great to watch the women truly thrive and grow during this programme, showing that Creativity is a vital aspect of creating a wave of change. We are currently exploring future funding opportunities and hope to announce new WOC events soon!
We have one offshoot from the programme taking place in May, you can express some interest in the event here:
One of the Wave of Change participants said this about the programme:
"I would describe the Wave of Change programme as probably one of the most valuable things I have done in a very long time."