Erasmus+ Women's Voices - Putting Women's Visual Voices at the Heart of Homelessness Support
The Erasmus+ Women’s Voices project aims to better understand the safety needs of women experiencing homelessness, thereby contributing to the development of more effective services and support that enhance both their emotional and physical safety. Our international partnership brings together BMSZKI (Hungary), Y-Foundation (Finland), Kings of the Street (Slovenia), The Salvation Army (France), SOMOS Mulheres (Portugal), South East Technological University (Ireland), and FEANTSA.
The project is based on the Visual Voices methodology, within which we organise international and local trainings as well as group processes. Building on the knowledge gained, we are developing a training package that enables the transfer of a support methodology which makes lived experiences visible through images and the personal narratives attached to them. In addition, the programme includes awareness-raising and sensitisation activities (online, as well as European and local exhibitions), and actively involves women experiencing homelessness to ensure that all outputs reflect their voices and experiences.
The project seeks to promote critical thinking and action, bringing about changes in how services for women experiencing homelessness operate. Its relevance lies in the fact that women experiencing homelessness often do not feel safe, while their safety- and trauma-related needs are frequently overlooked or marginalised in many services. The Women’s Voices project places women’s perspectives at the centre of change: how do women themselves experience safety? The project creates safe spaces where participants can reflect on their own experiences and articulate what safety means to them and what kind of support they need within homelessness services.
The project adopts a feminist and empowerment-based approach grounded in the Visual Voices methodology. Within this framework, women with lived experience of homelessness participate in safe groups where they:
- express how they experience safety—or the lack of it—through photography and narration,
- engage in joint reflection with homelessness professionals, managers, and decision-makers on how support for women can be improved.
In the first phase of the programme, participants are trained in the methodology required to facilitate these groups, followed by the implementation of one or more groups in each participating country. These processes result in the creation of “Women’s Voices” outputs: visual messages related to participants’ experiences of safety, accompanied by their own written interpretations.
The creation of these outputs serves multiple purposes. Firstly, the process itself constitutes a form of participatory research, recognising participants as experts through their lived experience, and functioning as an empowerment tool in its own right.
Secondly, the resulting images provide feedback for service providers on what women using their services perceive as key gaps and resources related to safety—both in their personal lives and within service provision. These insights create opportunities to initiate changes at local and organisational levels and to develop protocols aimed at improving safety.
Thirdly, partner organisations intend to use these materials to design and deliver sensitisation trainings for staff working in homelessness services. Training materials will be tailored to different professional roles and will be developed in formats suitable for in-person, online, and blended learning environments.
A fourth objective is to contribute to broader societal awareness. The visual outputs will be used in public-facing awareness campaigns and exhibitions in each participating country, targeting the wider public.
The project is implemented across seven European countries with the participation of 13 organisations, all directly working with women experiencing homelessness. These include women-only and mixed-gender day centres, accommodation services, supported housing programmes, and a Portuguese civil society organisation founded by women with lived experience of homelessness to support their peers. The development of the project methodology is led by Meabh Savage from South East Technological University. The consortium is coordinated by BMSZKI.
