DOMESTIC abuse survivor Shana Begum says meeting The Duchess of Cornwall as part of a survivors exhibition unveiled in Manchester shows how her life has "transformed" after years of fear.
In December 2018, Shana Begum's arrived in Moss Bank with her three children and a pram after fleeing 25 years of domestic violence in another area.
Since then she has thrown herself into fighting for other women and girls.
She is the first St Helens Domestic Abuse Prevention Officer and she is supporting a number of anti-violence projects and campaigns in the community and region, including SafeLives, a charity which aims to end domestic violence.
Via Safelives, she became one of 50 survivors to share her image and story with photographer Allie Crewe to take part in the I Am project – a series of portraits of domestic abuse survivors which was unveiled by The Duchess of Cornwall on Tuesday, May 2, in St Peter’s Square in Manchester and across the city’s Metrolink network as part of the SICK! Festival.
Shana, who is now pregnant with her fourth child, said meeting Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall at the unveiling at Manchester Library, highlighted to her how her life really has "transformed".
The 38-year-old said: “After living through 25 years of abuse, you can’t always see a light at the end of the tunnel, St Helens was that light for my family and here we have built a new life.
“On the back of that, I’ve got involved with so many great charities and groups and to be part of an exhibition like this is incredible, to share my lived experience and have it hopefully help others is amazing.
“I’m half way through my pregnancy, so I did almost take a tumble while curtsying to the Duchess of Cornwall, but apart from that it was incredible to meet her, share my story and have her say she is proud of me.
“It really shows how much my life, and that of my children, has transformed since we fled abuse, I could never have imagined we’d be where we are now.”
In a speech at Manchester Central Library, the duchess said: “The photographs are both incredibly moving and inspiring.
“Moving because of the depth of pain and loss that the survivors have endured at the hands of those who claimed to love them, and inspiring because these photographs show us how survivors can, and do, take back their own identity and their own stories, which have too often been eroded and taken from them by the abuse they have suffered.
“Part of the power of these photographs lies in the fact that the images are not of victims as we might have supposed but, in the words of one of them, ‘strong, feisty, brave survivors, changing the journey from victim to victor … making it smoother, shorter and never lonely’.”
Camilla said the stories she heard were “heartbreaking” but “not, by any means, unique”.
She added: “I am so honoured to launch this exhibition and I wish it – and all the survivors who are gathered here – every possible success as, together, we seek to end domestic abuse forever.”
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