Moira Macdonald, Linda Regan, Kim Chenoweth, Anne Haynes and Yvonne Atkinson.

Linda Regan, MBE

Chair of Trustees

I was a Senior Research Officer/Senior Lecturer and MA course convenor at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU), London Metropolitan University, where I was involved in research and evaluation on all aspects of sexual violence against women and children. I retired a few years ago.

I was concerned, before moving to Devon, that there was a lack of specialist provision for women victims of sexual violence in the county and worked with Fawcett Devon and Rape Crisis England and Wales to fill this gap.

I am delighted that DRCS is now up and running and providing a much needed service.

Moira Macdonald

Trustee

Moira Macdonald has lived in Devon for over 30 years. She has been active on women's rights and feminist campaigns from the day, as a teenager, she realised she would be paid less for doing the same job, with the same qualifications, as a man.
 
Forty plus years later we have gained many rights. We have made huge social progress; but Moira remains concerned that in the UK and internationally, we still face unacceptable barriers to being free agents of own lives - especially that gender-based violence remains both a cause and consequence of our inequality and lack of respected rights.
 
She is one of the founders of the campaign to establish a Rape Crisis Centre in Devon.
 
Moira became an Exeter City Councillor in 2010 and is active on planning and licensing matters. She also involved in the voluntary sector with other charities, especially those linked to the environment, sustainability and transport - where women's contributions, and the impact of climate change on our lives, needs equally to be taken into account.

Kim Chenoweth

Trustee

I became a feminist when an American civil rights activist, in the late sixties, said "The only place for women in the revolution is on their backs."

I was brought up in a radical household - by my mother, who had herself been a skipper in WW2.

There never was a possibility that I would fit a conventional version of femininity. I was shaped by the early Aldermaston to London marches, anti-Vietnam War demos and anti-Apartheid protest. The Greenham Common airbase which held American cruise missiles on English common land was a manifestation of women-only protest and many of us carry the lessons of that time into todays work for gender equality.

Men use sexual violence to humiliate and oppress women (and men) on a global basis, not just in war zones, but privately,secretly in domestic situations - often they are men known to a women.
This must end. No country can call itself democratic while women are unequal to men. The personal is still the political.

Anne Haynes

Trustee

I am a trustee of DRCS because I believe that by working together as volunteers, staff, and trustees we can "make a difference" to so many women living in Devon.

I have campaigned, relentlessly, over 30 years through my career in probation and in the voluntary sector to raise awareness of the nature and extent of gender-based violence and the need for appropriate services for both the abused and the abuser.

We can only change the "norms" of acceptance and silence in our society by taking a holistic approach that challenges the belief systems that abound across culture that support the inequality, subjugation, violence and sexual abuse of women.
 
I want to share my hope  that

"Another world is not only possible
She is on her way......................
On a quiet day, you can hear her breathing"
 
- Arundati Roy

Yvonne Atkinson, Solicitor, BA Hons, Dip Management Studies

Trustee

Yvonne is a feminist and governance expert. She helped establish the DRCS and is on the Board of Trustees. She also has a diploma in executive and organisational coaching and a certificate in Supervision. She is an experienced mentor and coach. She is accredited with the Institute of Leadership and management to teach its Level 3 and Level 5 Coaching and Mentoring qualifications. She has been involved in sexual violence campaigns since the 1970s.

She is the author of several publications on good governance and a Governance benchmark. She has 20 years experience of working at senior management team board level in large public and private sector organisations. She held the post of deputy chief executive in a district council and solicitor and monitoring officer in district and unitary councils in England.

She currently is director of the Board Development Agency.