THE Woman’s Aid refuge in Nelson Street, which opened some 13 or 14 years ago, has long outgrown the demand there is for its services. Its seven family rooms were simply not enough and quite often women - and their families - who were at the end of their tether had to be turned away. However, staff and residents are very much looking forward to the day they can move into their new refuge just a few yards down the road in Anderson Street. Here, in a totally refurbished block of flats there will be 2x3-bedroomed and 4x2-bedroomed maisonettes on the top two floors, plus five bedsits on the first floor and a flat for a disabled person on the ground floor.
The rest of the space on the ground and first floors is taken up with offices, a communal kitchen, communal sitting-room and communal laundry. There are children’s play rooms and a teenagers’ room where the youngsters can chill out.

“It’s nice and bright and the views there are lovely,” said Kate Donaghy, one of the women who run the refuge. It is hoped that the new building will be ready to move into either late this month or early September.

The beginnings of the £800,000 project were not without controversy as the original idea had been for a new custom-built refuge to be built adjacent to the present site. But there was an outcry from the community at the reduction of the grassy site, currently a play area, and a rethink meant the present plan was happily adopted. For a while, the funding of the project looked a bit wobbly, but with lottery cash and money from the Scottish Executive their goal has almost been reached, though more is still needed to furnish and decorate the premises.

Until the 1970s domestic abuse was something people tried to hide. A victim of abuse often comes to believe that it is shameful and somehow their fault, something they are doing wrong, that somehow they deserve it. Sometimes it is all they expect; children from a background of abuse often accept the pattern as the norm and don’t expect anything else. Children with such a background often have behavioural problems, and their mothers are liable to suffer from some degree of depression. One in five women are abused in their own homes, according to government figures. And it is something which crosses all social and educational barriers.

“There are higher levels of domestic abuse than people think,” says Kate, a Gaelic speaker from Lewis who has worked with Women’s Aid for the last 13 years. The recent increases in domestic abuse is largely down to their partners abusing drugs, she adds.

The first refuges in the UK were established in the early 1970s; the first one in Inverness was opened up in a rambling Victorian building in Culduthel Road in 1979, though a women’s group had started up a couple of years earlier. There is also a refuge in Dingwall and both are charities affiliated to Scottish Women’s Aid. Now some 50 families a year are helped by the Inverness refuge, around a third of them coming from the Inverness area, the rest from all over the Highlands, and further afield for women who have local support here.

Families, or individual women, may be in the refuge for anything from a few weeks to a few months until they are ready to move on to a place of their own and a job. The refuge also offers ongoing advice and support even after they have moved on. The women often form strong friendships that last long after they have left the refuge, and they will chum each other up and boost their confidence when they have an interview or some appointment.

The refuge is run as a collective with Kate and Isabel Clark, from Nairn who has worked at the refuge for 10 years, being full-time day workers. Gloria Zentler-Munro, who has also 13 years’ experience at the refuge is a part-time day-worker. There are also three night workers and a full-time children’s worker. With such a wealth of experience added to their wisdom, knowledge and compassion, the women who come over the doorstep of the Inverness refuge can be assured that they will get all available help to get themselves back on their feet.

Local people will have a chance to see the new premises for themselves as it is intended to hold an Open Day sometime in the autumn.