Abianda is a social enterprise that works with young women and girls affected by criminal exploitation and violence and provides training for the professionals who work with them.

 

We provide direct services for young women and girls aged up to 25 and training for professionals who work with them. We set up Abianda to address the gap in services for young women affected by 'gangs' and to change the way services are delivered to them, so we can more effectively respond to their needs. We do this through our unique model of practice – we address the barriers that stop young women from seeking help & work alongside them to design & deliver our services.

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Our Guiding Principles

​We believe that:

• Young women are experts on their own lives.

• Young women have innate resources, competence and resilience.

• People affected by a problem are best placed to find the solutions.

• We must shift traditional power hierarchies in service delivery in order to enable young women's participation in solution-building.

• We must support young women to have their voices heard in order that they can influence the design and delivery of services.

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When we speak about criminal exploitation, we are referring to a type of abuse where children and young people are manipulated, forced and/or coerced into committing crimes. We also often refer to 'county lines' in our work. County lines is the police term for criminal groups exploiting young people into moving drugs from one place, usually a big city, to another place. You can read more about criminal exploitation and county lines here.

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