Students at the Women’s Construction Centre in Buckenham Street were shocked to read in the previous Messenger about childcare funding cuts to Ellesmere Children’s Centre, BWRC and the Yemeni Centre. The Women’s construction centre currently has contracts with Ellesmere Children’s Centre for childcare requirements and deliberately located our project in Burngreave to attain good, affordable and accessible childcare. This also affects South Yorkshire Women’s Development Trust who contract BWRC to provide childcare for local women while they’re undertaking training.
Again women and children face serious disadvantages and are suffering as a result of these cuts. Our main concerns are that Burngreave New Deal is operating in the same way as the Learning Skills Council and other funders, who’ve made no extra funds available for childcare in the voluntary sector. Many women’s Training projects in Sheffield that have delivered to marginalized women’s groups have closed in the last two years. Now due to restrictive funding and lack of childcare in Burngreave we see surviving facilities difficult to maintain and women’s training opportunities curtailed.
Yours sincerely, Ros Wollen, Claudia Kuntze, Jo Goodison (Centre workers) and students at Women’s Construction Centre