Restored - Ending Violence Against Women

Invitation to be a founder member of Restored

At the World AIDS conference in Mexico in August 2008 God planted a seed in our hearts to see a united international Christian response to violence against women (VAW).  The questions ringing in our ears ever since have been: “Where is the church?” and “Where are the men?” when it comes to preventing and ending VAW.  

The last eighteen months have been an amazing journey of listening to God, praying and making contact with Christian individuals and organisations who are passionate about these issues and, in many cases, already working actively to end VAW.  Thank you to all who have supported and encouraged us during this time. 

We have very much felt God’s hand on this work and we are now in a position to launch Restored as an international Christian alliance dedicated to transforming relationships and ending violence against women.

Restored is being established as an independent charitable company, limited by guarantee.  Tearfund has agreed to incubate Restored for three years up to March 2013 and will itself become a member of the alliance. We have been overwhelmed by the willingness of Tearfund staff to give of their time and talents to help us get this far.  

Mandy will be allocating 60% of her time to VAW work from April; Peter is allocating 30% of his time now, which will rise to 50% from September. We have also hugely appreciated having Natalie Collins from Faith and Freedom working with us as a volunteer for one day a week.  Restored’s public launch will be at the “Bringing Hope” conference organised by Faith and Freedom in Colchester on 26 June; for more details of this conference go to http://faithandfreedom.webs.com/conference.htm.  Any organisations booking to attend the conference can have a free stall to display their materials.  Please publicise this conference through your own networks. 

When we met with a group of friends and interested organisations in Teddington in October last year, people started to suggest what they could offer to make Restored a success; whether in terms of prayer, resources, financial support, expertise or access to contacts.  We are now seeking to formalise this process through the attached membership application form. 

The headline message is that “We need you to be part of Restored”.  The scale of the challenge is vast.  We believe that we have a unique opportunity to address one of the most pressing global problems of our time, in God’s name and strength.  We believe that the impact of this work on women, men, children and the church itself could be very significant.  This alliance will only succeed if it continues to be led by God and powered by the commitment and energy of members.  Restored will not be undertaking programmatic work, but will seek to support the projects of members.  We aim to be international right from the start, while recognising that many of our contacts to date are in the UK.  Many of our members in other countries will initially be drawn from Tearfund’s network of partners, but if you know of other organisations who might be interested in joining Restored, then please forward this message to them.

We would love to have your organisation as a founder member.  Our requirement is that you sign up to our statement of principles and basis of faith (copies attached) and that you commit to making a contribution in whatever ways you can to achieving our objectives.  Please return your completed form to Mandy or Peter  Financial contributions can be waived, particularly for organisations in non-OECD countries.  Please contact us to discuss.  If you do decide to join us we are not looking for financial contributions now, but will contact you later in the year after the launch events, and once the legal formalities to establish Restored have been completed

We are excited to see what God is doing and look forward to working in partnership with you to end VAW.

Download the Corporate Membership application form.