In summer 2020, Northern Monk donated £5,000 to Rooted for Girls as part of the Faith in Futures charitable foundation.
Rooted is aimed at girls experiencing challenges around confidence, relationships and mental health. Rooted are passionate about promoting opportunities for teenage girls and women living in Bradford to experience the therapeutic benefits of spending time outdoors. They create conditions for growth as they seek to combine nature and nurture to bring about long-lasting change for the young women they work with.
We caught up with Beth Webber, Co-Founder and Director, to find how what’s changed at Rooted for Girls since the donation.
“The funding we received from Northern Monk offered us the opportunity to develop an exciting new offer to support women working on the frontline of mental health provision.” says Beth, who helped set up Rooted with Co-Founder Jenny, “We have designed 'Restore Days' to equip and empower practitioners to feel hopeful about the future, connect with one another and to continue the vital work they are doing.
“The Faith in Futures funding has led to some amazing partnerships with the Rape Crisis Team in Bradford. We have been able to offer fully funded and part funded Restore Days on a long-term seasonal basis - we work with teams in the Autumn and the Spring.
“These incredible women have found these sessions to be such a vital reflective, encouraging and restorative space. Our favourite comment from one of the women involved was; ‘Being here today has offered the opportunity to slow down, breathe, connect, sense, be in nature, feel the wind in my hair, sense fully, be creative and to be cared for.’
“We are constantly mindful of the increasing need for creative innovative and long-term approaches to wellbeing for girls and women in Bradford and are keen to extend and develop our provision. As fully trained counsellors, we are looking to develop a new 1:1 outdoor therapy offer for older teenage girls and women.
“Our ongoing professional development is forming new ways of working therapeutically in alliance with the natural world and we are looking forward to see how this impacts our work.
“Our passion for collaboration has led to a new year-long partnership with textile artist Laura Slater. We are hosting a series of seasonal workshops exploring nature’s connection and creativity. We are also putting on a collection of fundraising events to promote our work and to ignite a passion for adventure.
“Our 'Summer Series' will be taking place through June to September, and we have some really inspiring guest speakers coming to share their relationship with the outdoors and how it shapes their work.”
Northern Monk started life in a cellar in Bradford with a £5,000 gift from a grandparent. Inspired by these origins and an ambition to give back wherever we can, we launched the For The North Foundation in September 2019. The For The North Foundation allowed us to support the people who share our values, and our passion for the North, via £5,000 grants offered to businesses, charities and projects that aimed to provide a genuine benefit to the communities they serve, or the wider environment.
March 2021 saw the ‘For The North Foundation’ evolve into ‘Faith in Futures’. Faith in Futures has no geographical border applied to our giving. Funding for Faith in Futures is raised via exclusive product launches that are Twists on Faith, through our online shop, via sales of glassware at our Refectory sites, and by standalone fundraising events.
In 2022, we were very proud to celebrate the milestone of £50,000 donated to charities across the UK since the creation of the Foundation, and to have supported so many businesses, especially during the extremely tough period that was the pandemic.
Photography courtesy of Rooted for Girls and Joanna Crawford.