The purpose of this group was to provide a platform for the young women to use their experience to help raise awareness of women’s hidden homelessness through the eyes of survivors. With the help of Elena they took photographs of the areas of Glasgow that were significant to their experience of homelessness. These were then used to create posters which were displayed on bus stops around Glasgow to publicise the issue and the SAY Women service.
This helped to expel the myths and stereotypes of what homelessness is and brought light to the parts that far too often go unrecognised within society. They drew from their personal experiences to show that men’s violence against women and girls is one of the main causes of women’s hidden homelessness. The young women raised awareness of women’s hidden homelessness through different means. The bus stop posters gave visual representations of what hidden homelessness looks like. They also invited others from the SAY Women community to contribute writing to a zine, which created a narrative around personal experiences of hidden homelessness. They then recorded audio to make their visual and written art more accessible to those with visual and reading impairments.
On top of this, they took their work to the Scottish Government, where they shared it with MSPs and policy makers. The different steps taken in this project shows that the young women took one small idea and turned it into something that greatly influenced others. They came together as a collective with shared experiences in order to highlight the pain and suffering faced by young women who experience hidden homelessness.
