Multilingual Animation Series for women experiencing domestic abuse

The Women’s Centre Cornwall, with the support of Safer Cornwall, has launched an innovative project aimed at breaking down language barriers for women whose first language is not English and who may be experiencing domestic abuse.

The charity believes that all women should be safe from domestic abuse and sexual violence. It wants to remove the barriers of language and culture so that women can access their services. This initiative comes in response to the identified need for more effective communication tools tailored to non-English speaking women in Cornwall.

Upon reviewing existing resources, it became clear that traditional communication methods, such as leaflets, were ineffective. Many services were underutilised due to language differences, and some women were found to be illiterate in both English and their native languages.

To address these challenges, The Women’s Centre Cornwall has developed a series of videos, believing that visual and auditory content will be more accessible than written materials. This approach was validated by the charity’s International Women’s Group, which includes women from Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, and Ukraine. The group provided critical insights into how information should be communicated to improve accessibility.

Engagement with these migrant women revealed a strong preference for online videos in their native languages. Consequently, the project produced a suite of animated videos available in multiple languages, including Arabic, Bulgarian, English, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Ukrainian. This collection is continuously expanding to include more languages.