‘After Ciara Charteris Shared Her Experience Of Rape, Countless Women Have Come Forward’: Meet The Founders Of Abuse Support Network ‘I Am Arla’

‘Going through our trauma together, we were really lucky we had each other for love and support. There’s a lot of women out there that don’t have many friends, that are going through abuse or trauma alone. But that’s why we created I Am Arla, to connect women that are going through this, and there have been so many friendships made since.’

Laura Baldwin is co-founder of I Am Arla alongside long-time friend Devika Wood, a community-based platform built to support survivors of abuse. From giving women an opportunity to tell their story to providing them access to therapists, the platform has received tons of support from survivors and non-surviviors alike in lockdown. So much so, they now plan to coach businesses on how to support staff who are survivors, and launch an app that can connect women who’ve been through similar trauma.

Most recently, their platform made headlines after housing the story of Poldark’s Ciara Charteris, who wrote about her own experience of rape by a close friend - and the subsequent betrayal by her best friend who chose to remain friends with her rapist. Her incredibly-written piece sparked attention not just for Ciara’s celebrity status, but for how both harrowing and relatable it was for so many women.

‘Ciara messaged us on Instagram,’ explains Devika. ‘She said she had this story to tell and needed a platform to tell it, but more than that she wanted to be part of something that helps other women and change her career. So since then she’s joined our team, become an ambassador and she’s going to be working on building up how we support Universities with their student services.’

It’s not just been a big career move for Ciara, it’s also had a huge impact on the site. ‘Her story has brought forward so many women sharing theirs, we’ve seen the highest peak in women saying that they’ve experienced the same,’ says Devika.

According to Laura, there are usually scores of women that come forward with their own stories for every one published – albeit not in the same excess as what followed Ciara’s story – which goes to show just how necessary I Am Arla is. Because, as Ciara found when she reached out to other charities, there is no platform like theirs, that allows women to both share their trauma and seek support, connecting with other women at the same time.

So where did they get the idea? Sadly, through their own experiences of trauma. ‘Laura and I were friends from ages ago,’ explains Devika. ‘But about five years ago we randomly bumped into each other at a bar and rekindled. We realised that the two people we were both in incredibly violent, abusive relationships with at the time were both friends. It sparked a connection between us because we finally felt like we weren’t alone and we had this other person to support us through it.’

With the life-support that they quickly became for one another, the women decided they wanted to ‘bottle up’ that support into a service other women could have too. A place ‘where no matter what trauma they've been through, no matter where they are in their life and who they are, they can have that same love and support and validation of the trauma they've gone through.’

Launching their service during lockdown, Devika says that seeing the harrowing rise in domestic abuse rates – with charities like Refuge noting 950% rises in website visits and 16 women dying at the hands of partners within the first month of restrictions – gave them a sense of urgency to get I Am Arla going.

‘Seeing those [statistics], we just thought “What can we do to support whatever services are out there at the moment?”’ Devika explains. ‘Charities were overrun, there was a lot of women stuck in lockdown that were facing some of the most terrifying experience as possible. So we developed the website overnight and launched the Instagram account sharing our stories.’

They hoped that in sharing their trauma – which was already a terrifying experience of vulnerability – that other women would come forward with theirs. And they did, in troves. ‘We didn't know what they're like what the reception would be,’ Devika continues. ‘But it honestly was accepted in such an incredibly powerful way. From the moment we launched, to now, we've shared over 100 stories and the numbers just keep increasing by the day. We get around 10 requests every day now from women hoping to share their story.’

Starting with just the two of them, now I am Arla is a team of incredible women – all survivors of some form of trauma – coming together with the same purpose of ‘creating a community for women to feel empowered’.

It’s an impressive, and heart-warming, feat – and certainly puts our lockdown productivity to shame – but with so many women getting in touch, especially since Ciara’s story was shared, it’s also vitally necessary. So if you’re in need of support or want to share your own story, visit I Am Arla here.

I Am Arla is running a Rape Awareness and Advice week from the 21st- 27th of September where they will share more stories and provide advice and workshops for survivors. Topics covered include; how to access help, what reporting to the police is like, the pro's and con's of pressing charges, relationships and sex after rape and advice for family and friends on supporting loved ones.

Read More:

Visits To Domestic Abuse Sites Have Now Risen By 950% Since Lockdown

Coronavirus: How To Help The Most Vulnerable Women In Society

'I'm Proof Domestic Abuse Doesn't Have A Type'