Shakti Women’s Aid is a domestic abuse support service based in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland. It helps black and minority ethnic women, children, and young people who have experienced domestic abuse. They work closely with the

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Police Scotland Police Scotland (), officially the Police Service of Scotland (), is the national police force of Scotland. It was formed in 2013, through the merging of eight regional police forces in Scotland, as well as the specialist services of the Scottis ...

NHS Scotland NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly–funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland ...

, and other statutory and voluntary services. They provide

helpline A helpline, or switchboard, is a telephone service which offers help to those who call. Many helpline services now offer more than telephone support - offering access to information, advice or customer service via telephone, email, web or SMS. ...

services for user and consultancy for other agencies. In 1987, Shakti opened the first refuge for BME women in Edinburgh.

Shakti Shakti (Devanagari: शक्ति, IAST: Śakti; 'energy, ability, strength, effort, power, might, capability') in Hinduism, is the "Universal Power" that underlies and sustains all existence. Conceived as feminine in essence, Shakti refer ...

(the name means ‘the strength and power of women’) was established in 1986. to work with women and children from minority ethnic and black communities who don't seek help from mainstream organisations because they feel that their particular issues are not understood. The organisation is a member organisation of Scottish Women's Aid. It has staff members who between them speak 18 different languages (including Polish, Mandarin, Swahili, Arabic, Urdu and Spanish), working in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Fife, Dundee and the Forth Valley. It also has a specialist children’s service. Shakti lead a number of campaigns to highlight issues for BME people in Scotland {{Cite web, title=Event marks women's plight, url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/event-marks-womens-plight-1683998, access-date=2021-03-06, website=www.scotsman.com, language=en

References

Women's organisations based in Scotland Women's health in the United Kingdom Women's rights in Scotland Charities based in Edinburgh Family in Scotland Domestic violence-related organizations Family and parenting issues groups in the United Kingdom