Fund Women: Support Charities and George Osborne

fund women: After activists led a campaign against the 5% VAT on tampons and sanitary towels in 2015, the then chancellor, George Osborne, promised to use the revenue to fund women's health and support charities . Out of the 10 charities chosen to benefit last year, only two were specialist women's organisations and this year there wasonly one, according to The Guardian. The letter, coordinated by the Women's Resource Centre WRC a national umbrella group for the women's sector, says We are concerned that even when women's charities have led bids, or applied in consortia-type arrangements, it is larger generic organisations that have been granted the funding. In an open letter to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, more than 100 women, including academics and representatives of women's charities, have urged the government to ringfence cash raised from the unpopular levy to be donated to organisations dedicated to women. We are very concerned that the success of some of these bids will cause further damage to the fragile women's charity sector by drawing investment to generic providers. Beneficiaries have included Mind and Crisis UK. The sole women's charity to receive tampon tax cash this year was Southall Black Sisters but that did not stop its director, Pragna Patel, putting her name to the letter. The majority of funding has gone to organisations that are not wholly dedicated to women but are running specific projects aimed at their welfare. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.