Rising up for women’s safety
A trio from Bath have set themselves a challenge to skip 97,000 times for women’s safety.
Twenty-year-old Maddy Swann, Kye Towerzey and Charity Carter, all from Bath, are attempting the huge feat in light of the recent spotlight on violence against women.
The friends are raising money for End Violence Against Women and are skipping 97,000 times to represent the 97 per cent of women who have been harassed in their lifetime.
Maddy Swann said: “In light of the tragedy of Sarah Everard and the discussions of violence against women we wanted to do something good.
“The discussions about the harassment faced by females is something I feel strongly about as I’ve been a victim of that myself.
“So many people are feeling so upset about it. We wanted to do something to help and raising money for this cause is a way to do that.”
Miss Swann, who works in a cafe but is on furlough, said she wanted Bath residents to recognise harassment happens everywhere, including in the city.
“I was explaining to Kye, my housemate, about how nervous I feel going on a dog walk, how I carry my keys with me, and how anxious I get walking,” she said.
“He said he’d never experienced that but wanted to help me and has been great with this. Charity is our friend and said she wanted to take part too, which is amazing.
“It is terrible what all women face, I hope families and people are having really proactive conversations about everyone’s behaviour and people realise it has got to stop.”
The team are trying to skip for an hour and half at a time and have already made a big dent in the total with 79,500 jumps to go. Miss Swann said the skipping itself was not easy but that they were all getting much faster the more they did it. She said: “I’d really like us to manage this total in two weeks, we’re even thinking now we should just skip to the shops and skip everywhere – we’ve got a long way to go.
“I’d love us to raise £3,000, that would be amazing. We’re almost at £1,000 now. I can only seem to manage about 100 skips in one go but Charity is amazing and can do about 250.”
A Gofundme page has been set up by the trio for supporters to donate to. At the time of writing it had raised £1,205.
The funds raised by the trio will go to End Violence Against Women.
You can donate to the Gofundme at https://bit.ly/3vxs3pk.