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Birkbeck’s SHaMe project secures £250,000 grant by the Wellcome Trust

The grant has been awarded to Birkbeck’s research hub that explores the interlinks between sexual violence, medicine and psychiatry.

Time for change spelled out in Scrabble pieces

Birkbeck’s SHaMe Project has been awarded a quarter of a million-pound grant as part of the Wellcome Trust’s ‘Research Enrichment – Public Engagement’ award, to run a series of Shameless! Festivals of Activism Against Sexual Violence in collaboration with The WOW Foundation. The Shameless Festivals are a series of cross-arts events combining academic research, activism and art to confront sexual violence. The project is due to run from 2021 for the duration of three years and will take place in the UK and Brazil.

Led by Professor Joanna Bourke, from the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, the SHaMe project is a research hub for scholarship on the interlinks between sexual violence, medicine and psychiatry, placing medical professionals at the heart of the debates, the project seeks to address the global crisis and help move beyond the shame often attached to sexual violence.

The Shameless! Festivals will incorporate national, international and grassroots organisations and charities as well as local artists and wellness practitioners who will come together to change societal attitudes towards sexual violence.

Professor Joanna Bourke said: “We are thrilled to announce that the Wellcome Trust has awarded SHaME a ‘Research Enrichment – Public Engagement’ award to run a series of Shameless! Festivals of Activism Against Sexual Violence in collaboration with The WOW Foundation. We are particularly thrilled to be collaborating with The WOW Foundation. WOW festivals have successfully mobilised a global feminist movement reaching over two million people across sixty-five festivals in seventeen countries. Our respective knowledges and expertise will develop a strong complementary programme: uniting SHaME’s interdisciplinary research with WOW’s provocative and celebratory programming, Shameless! will create real impact in the lives of sexual violence survivors.”

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