In this blog, programme participant Neave Townsley shares a brief introduction to the Brave Lassies Blether campaign. Brave Lassies Blether is part of Young Women Know, a partnership programme between The Young Women’s Movement and NSPCC Scotland, delivered with Angus Council. Young Women Know works with young women aged 16-18 living in different local authority areas in Scotland, to create toolkits to support young people in their understanding of healthy relationships, consent and safe spaces.

When I was approached by my Pupil Care and Support teacher about an opportunity to help start up a campaign for young women with The Young Women’s Movement – I was confused but then thought, why not? What’s the worst that could happen? If I don’t like it, I don’t have to sign up to be part of the campaign. Well, I am sure glad I made a promise to try everything once. After attending the information meeting, I was enamoured with the thought that I, a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl, could help young women find their voice.

As these sessions continued, I felt like I realised more and more how necessary the work we are doing is. I mean I didn’t even know what most of the support services we discussed were. I know a lot of young women can relate, and will not realise the amount of help that is really out there. Did you know that in the last year, 9 women have been killed by a partner or ex-partner? That’s more than one every six weeks. The information we provide, even if only one part of it sticks in someone’s mind, is so necessary.

During the development of the campaign, we had to make a lot of big decisions. One of those decisions was what we were going to call ourselves. So, how did we settle on Brave Lassies Blether? Well, there were certainly a lot of options in the works but we wanted a name that would really convey our message. We wanted women to know that we understand speaking up is hard and that they will be supported the whole way. We wanted women to feel brave and empowered to speak up. As the group is based in Angus, we also wanted to reference our roots, so ‘Lassies’ and ‘Blether’ were good uses of local language. At the end of the day, Brave Lassies Blether was really the only choice!

So, what is the Brave Lassies Blether message? What are we trying to say with this campaign?

• We want young women to feel like they have a safe place to talk about issues they are having.
• That their experiences are not what will define them.
• There is someone ready to listen at the other end of the phone whenever they need it.
• We want women to know that there is always someone to speak to and they don’t have to struggle alone.

Women’s voices matter. What we have to say matters.

Brave Lassies Blether hopes that one day every woman finds her voice, and uses it for her.