A project supporting Eastern European women now living in Worcestershire has secured nearly £10,000 in National Lottery funding.
Love Growth Network received the £9,800 grant to deliver bilingual support sessions for women facing loneliness, isolation and low confidence.
Monika Lenard, who lives in Redditch, founded the business in 2025.
She said: “Over the last 12-18 months more and more women, sadly, have been coming to me to tell me about their worries over loneliness, loss of confidence and the ensuing stress this can bring on.
“When you are in a strange country and cut off from all your family ties and support then these feelings and worries often seem to multiply.
“This grant will allow us to run bilingual support sessions for women in a safe space.
“The sessions will slowly rebuild the confidence and self-esteem of the women helping to reduce their stress and isolation.
“We will call in specialist services when required to offer further help and we will look to help the women reduce their reliance on existing NHS services and resources.
“Most importantly though the sessions will be both trauma-informed and bilingual in English, Slovakian, Ukrainian and Polish.”
The funding was secured with support from Worcestershire’s Community Boost, the organisation that has generated over £2.4 million in grant funding for community organisations.
Keith Slater of The Boost said: “We cannot continue to allow groups of vulnerable people to remain almost hidden away and hope that somehow their problems just disappear.
“What Monika is offering here is such an important step in helping some quite vulnerable women to recover their self-esteem and improve their general health and well-being.”
For more information about the project, visit the Love Growth Network CIC website.
