FACED with a million-dollar hole in their 2005 budget, Woman Inc, the 20 year-old woman’s crisis centre and shelter, has called on their private sector partners for financial support to help to cover their operational costs.

“The needs are constant. But as with every other organisation, our utility cost has gone up. The cost of operating the crisis centre and the crisis shelter has gone up.

Our income is fixed, but our costs of operation keep going up,” Woman Inc president Carol Sewell told the Observer last week.

“The Canadian Gender Equity Fund assisted us with a project but that is a project to do certain specific things. It is not to fund administrative expenses. So we are thankful for that but we need money for operational expenses,” Stewart said.

Their situation, she noted, has been made more acute by their inability to host their annual trade fair this November. They will, as a result, miss out on a million dollars, which is the sum normally raked in from the fair. With the absence of sponsorship for the event, however, there is little they can do about it.

“We are in a tight spot. Our corporate donors have been good to us over the years. So we would appeal to them to assist with funding if they can,” the Woman Inc president said. “We have administrative costs. We have facilities costs and we have costs for maintaining the shelter,” she added.

Their administrative costs, which include the payment of salaries and statutory obligations, currently run into an estimated $2.2 million each year. They save an added million or so of that cost since the salary of their administrator is paid by Grace Kennedy Remittance Services.

Meanwhile, with a government subvention of a million dollars annually, they are hard-pressed to come up with funding for various projects for which they are reliant on corporate and other funding.

“We get a government subvention, which assists us in our administrative and shelter expenses. But at the same time that subvention does not cover our budget. For example, our shelter maintenance for the year is somewhere in the region of $224,000,” Sewell Said.

It is for this reason that they have, as has been done in the past, called on the public to donate a raft of items to help sustain abused women utilising their crisis shelter. Among the items are:

. cleaning agents and implements like mops and yard brooms;

. kitchen food items like tinned goods, butter and milk; and

. sanitary supplies like foil paper, sanitary napkins and baby diapers.

They are also in need of assorted stationery and office supplies as well as padlocks, door locks and fluorescent bulbs.

Woman Inc opened its doors in 1984 through the effort of a group of women intent on lending their support to those who had been victims of rape, incest and or domestic abuse. Among the services offered by the organisation, which is operated through a range of subcommittees, are a crisis shelter housed at a secret location, a public education programme, a legal reform committee and a 24-hour hotline.

In the years since its establishment, the Women Inc has been the place where many women have sought refuge. In the last four years Woman Inc has sheltered close to 500 women while offering counselling services to hordes of others. Last year alone they had 485 requests for shelter but were only able to house 80, according to Sewell.

williamsp@jamaicaobserver.com