Women's support group clocks up 40 vital years (From This is Hampshire)

Women's support group clocks up 40 vital years

12:40pm Tuesday 16th March 2010 in

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A CHARITY is celebrating 40 years of helping and educating women and girls in Basingstoke.

The Life team supports women with problems such as having trouble conceiving, or girls who become pregnant at a young age and need support to keep their baby.

Volunteers also give talks at local schools to educate children and prevent them from getting into difficult situations in the future.

Jane Ingram, education officer for the Southern Region, regularly gives talks to pupils in Basingstoke, and recently visited Bishop Challoner Catholic Secondary School in St Michael’s Road, South Ham, where Year 11 pupils took part in workshops and discussions.

She said: “The charity started in 1970 as a group of people who wanted to help girls who found themselves pregnant and who wanted to keep their babies. Many were being pushed down the abortion route.”

One mum from Basingstoke, who has been helped by the charity when she and her husband, had trouble conceiving, spoke highly about the group’s work. The 33-year-old mother struggled for three years to become pregnant and was told by doctors her only hope of having a baby was through IVF.

She said: “That scared us because we thought there’s no other way. The charity helped educate us and find the right moment to conceive. It gave us confidence that there was nothing wrong with us.”

In less than a year, the woman became pregnant naturally and now has two boys of four and 18 months old, and is expecting her third child.

She added: “Because of my beliefs, it would have been hard to choose the IVF if this hadn’t worked. I probably wouldn’t have. I’m just very glad Life managed to help me conceive naturally.”

The charity has accommodation centres across the country to support pregnant women, mothers with small children and families. There is no centre in Basingstoke, but Mrs Ingram said there is a need for one in the town.

She added: “The nearest houses to Basingstoke are Fleet and Farnborough. It’s desperately needed but we struggle to open more in other towns, such as Basingstoke, because there isn’t the funding, or because a council doesn’t want it.”

The Basingstoke and North Hampshire Life group has organised a fundraising event on March 20 at Christ the King church hall in Sullivan Road, Brighton Hill, at 7pm.

Tickets cost £5 for the evening’s entertainment, which will include music from the 1950s and 1960s, comedy and refreshments. For more information about the charity, visit life.org.uk.