Charis Tiwala: There is always hope

To ensure the safety of the Charis team and those they support, the below has been written by an unnamed team member:

Our Story: Charis started in 2008 as an outreach project to people in the sex industry from a local church. In 2014 Charis Tiwala became a registered charity.

It started with prayer and continues to be based in prayer, we do our best to pray before every meeting, phone call and interaction. We know that God loves the people we aim to support fully and extravagantly, and at Charis we get the privilege of being Jesus’s hands and feet on the ground and showing how God loves people. We are also recognise that God needs to be in all we do for it to work.

The people with whom we work have often been let down by others, whether that’s in their family or personal relationships or people they thought they could trust and then treated them unkindly or disrespectfully.

Therefore at Charis we try as much as we can to provide a support service based on being consistent, trustworthy and transparent. We work collaboratively and support people to get to a place where they feel empowered. We want each person to feel validated and affirmed each time they meet with us. We value listening and hearing what each individual that we work with has to share and say. We don’t always get it right, but that is the aim.

What we do: Our offer of support is always a choice and never an obligation, it is open to people of all faiths and there is no expectation that people change their religious affiliation or beliefs to continue getting support from us. Our values are based on how Jesus would have treated others and therefore kindness and an endeavour to understand people as best we can and support them to get to a place where they are where they choose to be, is the aim.

We mainly support women due to the size and gender of our team, we also support trans women, trans feminine and non-binary people and anyone assigned male at birth (AMAB) but who identifies differently, affected by or in the sex industry.

This includes those who consider themselves sex workers, independent and agency escorts, those that work in licensed sex establishments, and those who exchange sex for necessities (such as rent, food, drugs etc) and those who have been affected by the industry in other ways.
Everybody’s experience and story is different.

We recognise that we are not experts on the sex industry therefore we endeavour to continue to change, learn, and to listen to those we work with; to be able to offer the best support that we can to those who are affected by or in the sex industry.

The support is tailored to what an individual needs. Some of the women we support, we speak to on a weekly basis either via text, a phone call, meeting for a coffee or in weekly group bible studies. Others may just engage with us for a while to be signposted to other organisations that we have built relationships with to make things just a little easier, such as Sexual Health Hertfordshire.

Some people may want additional support as they go through a difficult time such as a bereavement or accessing help for addiction or mental health issues or difficulty with housing.  We aim to come alongside them when they want us to, talk to them after difficult appointments or conversations and occasionally accompany them to appointments; even if it’s just to stand outside the building until they come out, so that they aren’t alone.

We also accept referrals from other organisations such as health services, job centres, social services and drug and alcohol services or just through a phone call or text from a woman who has found our website or social media and wants to talk to us.

Future projects we’re excited about: We really recognise at Charis that so many organisations in Hertfordshire are doing brilliant things to support our community and people in it who would benefit from additional support at times.

We are working to build good connections with those organisations so that we can come alongside them, learn from them and be ready to offer support to women accessing their services who might want to access support from us as well. We have already created good links with local councils, sexual health services and the health service in general. We are looking to link with others as well so that women know we are here.

Get Involved:

https://charistiwala.com/about/volunteer

We’d love to hear from anyone who wanted to volunteer with us, whether that a weekly commitment to pray and do outreach with us and our committed team of volunteers or offering specialist skills such a beauty therapy or first aid trainers. The women we support are often interested in learning new and useful skills so we would love to hear from you if you have a suggestion.