Projects

Physical Empowerment CIC is people-focused and user-led. Physical Empowerment groups and courses are tailored according to who they are aimed at. This is key as the self-defence moves and seminar subjects differ.

The Physical Empowerment CIC Aims are:

To help people reintegrate into society through helping them to empower themselves.
To give people opportunities to be the best they can be.
To promote women and men working together to end violence.
To create a wider awareness of the use of self-defence as a trauma rehabilitation tool.

Our initial focus was on working with three specific groups: domestic abuse survivors, rape & sexual abuse survivors and women in prostitution. Whilst developing, planning and running these projects, it became apparent that there were other community groups in need such as teenagers and seniors.

Physical Empowerment CIC treats everyone as an individual. On courses, we break through barriers and we work as a team with attendees. There is no “them” and “us”. The more people work together in a community, the more resilient we become.

Courses are aimed at people who have either been referred to us through an agency or who have self-referred to us. We aim to be able to offer our training, for free, to the people who need it the most.

This is thanks to the awesome organisations who fund our projects: THANK YOU! You can view the logos of our current funders and partner organisations at the bottom of this page.

We are currently working on projects across West Wales and also in Crawley, Sussex. Please get in touch if you are interested in Physical Empowerment for your area; where there is a will there is always a way!

Domestic Abuse Survivors

Physical Course / Online Support

We have had our headquarters in Port Talbot since 2021. We run regular courses here as well as at our centres in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.

These courses are for anyone who has lived through domestic abuse; historic or recent. People who work or volunteer with domestic abuse survivors are also welcome to attend the introductory sessions for these courses.

Introductory sessions are no pressure, come and have a cup of tea, meet ladies who have completed the course and hear about what we do.

You can refer yourself or someone else by clicking here.

Teenagers

Physical Courses

There is a high occurrence of anxiety and depression in teenagers. This frequently goes hand in hand with self-harming and other traumatising behaviour. There is often a history of domestic violence somewhere in the family history.

We have run various stand alone sessions and longer-term projects across West Wales with teenagers including at referral units, local youth clubs and colleges.

The long-term aim is to train up teenage ambassadors so they can take control of their own self-defence and empowerment journey and keep spreading the word.

Seniors

Physical Course

No matter our age, we’re all faced with major challenges throughout our lives. The ageing process can make physical responses to stress more difficult. Trauma that tends to come together with getting older can be things such as having to move out of your lifelong home (transitional trauma), loss of a partner, a decline in physical, emotional and mental health or that feeling of being a ‘spare part’ in society.

We have run various sessions with older communities. We tend to cover a basic introduction to emotional, mental and physical self-defence and always get great feedback.

Some of the ladies who have themselves completed a Physical Empowerment course have been and helped teach the senior groups. This has been a brilliant experience for everyone involved and a great example of intergenerational empowerment..

Together Towards Tomorrow

Physical Course / Family Support

This is a joint project with Playful Life CIC which is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund (People & Places) until August 2027.

Staff and volunteers from both organisations are involved in delivering this project. We run a cross referral scheme and aim to make space for women and children which enables them to work through any past trauma and empowers them to move forward in a positive way.

Both of our organisations already know that what we do makes a life-changing difference and we are wholly confident that working together moving forward and offering a whole-family approach, will make even more of a difference in our community and beyond.

Referrals are based on an individual case assessment.

Rape and Sexual Abuse Survivors

Physical Course / Online Support

We know that trauma informed self-defence makes a lifechanging difference to people who have been raped, sexually abused or violated in any other sexual way. We see evidence of this in every session we run.

We run a weekly session specifically for women who have survived childhood sexual abuse and / or been raped as a young girl. This is an incredible session which teaches us every week how to constantly improve the trauma informed way in which we work.

There is no referral system for this group, please have a direct chat with Philippa to find out more.

Women in Prostitution

Physical Course / Online Support

After refusals from several funders in 2021, The Allen Lane Foundation agreed to support us and we ran a pioneering project with Streetlight UK, who specialise in working with women in prostitution.

We ran an online training session with staff and volunteers, followed by a full day, face to face training session in which staff and volunteers learnt basic self-defence skills and developed an awareness of the law regarding self-defence in the UK.

We then created a training video for future staff and volunteers and a workbook which we designed so it can be easily used to get parts of Physical Empowerment directly to the women that Streetlight UK work with.

If you are an organisation that works with women in prostitution, please get in touch and see how we can help you.

Join Us

If you'd like to join one of our courses or groups, don't put it off, get in touch today.

Join Us

We believe that men and women need to work together to create true societal change. We help people to empower themselves from the inside out.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you attend a Physical Empowerment course, you will never be expected to take part in any activity or physical move that you are not happy about. The idea is to push yourself and try to face your demons but it is important that you do that at your pace. You do not have to rush to complete anything on the course, that is partly why the follow-up sessions are there afterwards.

We are here to work with you, not to frighten you. Every course will be designed so there is a safe space where people can go for time out and there will be people on hand if you want a listening ear.

"Self-defence is not just a set of techniques, it is a set of beliefs and it starts with the belief that you are worth defending." Rorion Gracie