Pop stars offer help to Walsall women's hostel

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Pop stars offer help to Walsall women's hostel
The YamYam 4 August 09
Pop stars Chris Difford from Squeeze and Marti Pellow from Wet Wet Wet have offered to hold a fund-raising gig for a Walsall drugs hostel which helps addicts from across the country beat their addiction.

The celebrities made the offer after hearing about the success the Manor Women’s Project has in helping women escape from a life of drug use, crime and prostitution.

The gig will further raise the profile of the 17 bed unit on Pleck Road which has won national awards for its work but which receives no official funding from national or local government apart from housing benefit for each of its residents.

The project, run by Robert (Greg) Gregory and his partner Alison Cattell, has been helping women escape drugs since 2003 when the project, then a hostel for vulnerable people, realised two out of three its clients were using class A drugs.

“We are based close to the red light district of Walsall and we could literally see the problem walking past our front door and that there was very little support for those people wanting to get off drugs,” Greg explained.

BBC 5 Live presenter Victoria Derbyshire recently spent two days at the project in Walsall. Read her comments and watch the programmes she made below.

BBC 5 Live 29 Jul Victoria's blog: Day 1, Manor Women's Project video
BBC 5 Live 30 Jul Victoria's blog: Day 2, off the drugs and off the streets video

Academi Jul Poetry and prose from award-winning rehabilitation project

Manor Women's Project Home

Chris Difford Music Home
Marti Pellow (unofficial) Home

Tags: Drugs, People, Women