Who are we?

Swansea Women’s Centre is a charity based in Swansea and open to all women in the Swansea and wider South Wales area. The Centre offers a range of activities and facilities for women including courses, workshops, groups, drop-ins, and information and resources.

Please see other pages for up to date information.

Swansea Women’s Centre history

Swansea Women’s Centre was established in the mid 1970s by a feminist collective of local women. In line with the Women’s Movement , the collective identified a need for ‘Women Only’ space in the city. Women-only spaces were seen as an important way of offering women a safe place where they could gather and share skills and experiences as a means of empowerment without the involvement of men. Swansea Women’s Centre continues to operate in this feminist tradition, and consequently a lot of energy and hard work is still put into securing and retaining a non-hierarchical women-only space.

Initially the Centre was located at Singleton Street. At that time the Centre was a small shop fronted building rented from the local council for a ‘peppercorn rent’ that was earmarked for demolition. In 1983 the Centre moved to Alexandra Road to another run down property rented from the council and remained there until 1988 when it moved to a more suitable property in the High Street. Although above a shop, the new property was larger than the previous buildings and enabled the Centre to expand its activities which included for the first time a training programme. In 1991 the Centre secured an Urban Aid Grant and was able to employ 2 paid workers for the first time. This was the start of the collective being able to train volunteers to run the Centre on a day to day basis in a more professional capacity. The Centre then moved to its current premises in 1998 where its activities and facilities were further expanded to become the Centre we see today.

Our principles

The Centre’s principles have stayed constant over the 35 years and are; women-only, anti-discrimination and self-help. The Centre is a women only environment where we provide space for women to have the chance to discover their full potential. We are actively committed to equal opportunities and anti-discriminatory practice. We aim to ensure that no woman using the Centre or working here is discriminated against on grounds of race, religion, sexuality, class, economic status, marital status, child or domestic arrangements or mental or physical health/ability. We also encourage all women working here to be aware of their own attitudes and to challenge discriminatory behaviour and language. We provide women that approach the Centre with information not advice. We try to help women identify what they need and how they can achieve it. We do not tell women what to do but concentrate on helping them to make their own choices. We believe this will eventually be an empowering experience for those women and they are more likely to carry through with their choices.