CARA's Mission:
CARA (Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse) works with victims and survivors of sexual violence and child sexual abuse, providing independent, specialist support and promoting and representing their rights and needs.
CARA’s Vision:
CARA's vision is of a world without sexual violence and child sexual abuse. As a step towards this vision, we do all we can to create a culture where victims and survivors are believed, supported and treated with fairness and respect.
CARA's Aims:
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To provide high quality, specialist support to victims and survivors of sexual violence and child sexual abuse.
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To increase awareness and understanding of sexual violence and child sexual abuse and the impact they have on victims and survivors, challenging myths and misconceptions.
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To promote and represent the rights and needs of victims and survivors, including advocating for a fairer criminal justice system.
CARA's Values:
Feminism. Respect. Empowerment. Equality
CARA is a women-led organisation and we work from an intersectional feminist perspective. We actively seek to ensure equality of women as a service provider and as an employer.
The core values of feminism, respect, empowerment and equality underpin everything we do.
In practical terms, our feminist approach means that:
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We recognise the gender context of sexual violence: That sexual violence disproportionately affects women, and that the majority of sexual violence is a result of gender inequality in our society.
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Empowerment is central to the services we provide: We seek to help victims recognise that they are not to blame for what has happened to them and to support them in moving forward with their lives.
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We work to increase awareness and understanding of the societal attitudes that perpetuate sexual violence and devalue the devastating impact it has on victims’ lives. We seek to challenge the myths and misconceptions that exist around sexual violence.
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We recognise that women may need safe, women-only spaces to help them work through what has happened to them. All our permanent staff are women and some of our services are open to women-only.
CARA's commitment to diversity and inclusion:
CARA seeks to be an inclusive organisation that actively encourages, supports and values diversity amongst both our service-users and our workers. We wish to create a culture in which discrimination, in all its forms, is recognised and addressed.
Please see our page Diversity and Inclusion at CARA for more information.
