Creating positive change for women

As part of our commitment to supporting women in our local community, the Citizens Theatre has worked in close partnership with Tomorrow’s Women for many years.  

Tomorrow’s Women Glasgow is a community justice centre for women whose main aim to reducing women’s offending whilst supporting them to turn their lives around. They are a multi-disciplined team including social work, nursing, housing, psychology and the Scottish Prison Service.  

The women come with a multitude of complex issues including repeat offending, housing needs, addictions, bereavement, physical and mental health problems, trauma, domestic abuse, historical abuse, and social isolation. Tomorrow’s Women works from a trauma-informed, assertive outreach model which includes establishing safety, building trust, and working together.  

Martha’s Mammies is a newly established service in Glasgow working with women who have lost care of their children, on a recent, short-term or long-term basis. 

The group work together with Tomorrow’s Women at the same time. We work as one, and we explore material and themes around life, journeys, identity, hopes, and positive change.  

Through our work, we provide women from both organisations a creative outlet. Both groups socialise together irrespective of which group they are assigned to, creating a sense of unity and solidarity among them. 

We offer a creative programme across the year with participants and staff members investigating specific themes such as the criminal justice system, routes to positive change and relationships.  

The programme takes the form of a year-round creative residency with participants and staff members. Each week, women take part in artistic workshops based at the Gorbals centre including creative writing, drama and costume making sessions, leading up to a sharing of work. As part of these workshops, the group has devised several plays, some of which have been performed at the Citizens Theatre. 

Highlights from the past years have included: 

• Working with playwright Linda Duncan McLaughlin on a series of workshops that explored playwriting, creating a character, and developing plotlines. The group devised their own scenes, framed within a criminal justice context. They then got to perform their scripts to an invited audience alongside professional actors Maureen Carr, Yana Harris and Eimi Quin. 
• We Shall Remain – First performed in 2016 at the Citizens’ Studio Theatre. The play gave an insights into past behaviours and the journey from prison to reintegrating back into the community.  
• I Do – First performed in 2017. The play featured a cast dressed in an assortment of wedding dresses, and focussed on the role of women in today’s society, personal identity, dreams, and aspirations for the future.  

The women are also invited to Citizens Theatre productions and have seen many shows over the years. We look forward to welcoming our All We Can Participants into the newly redeveloped theatre to experience more live performances. 

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