We've Reached 1,000 Women and Girls: Here's Why That Number Means Everything

By Charlotte, Founder of Ignite Your Power CIC

This weekend, Ignite Your Power CIC reached a milestone that stopped me in my tracks.

We have now delivered in-person self-defence and personal safety sessions to over 1,000 women and girls across Hampshire.

One thousand. In just two years.

I need to tell you why that number means so much more than a statistic.

Where this started

I spent over 23 years in martial arts and nearly a decade working as a security consultant. In that work, I saw violence against women and girls up close, not as headlines, but as everyday reality.

I also experienced it myself. As a survivor of domestic abuse, I know what it feels like to be afraid. To feel like your safety is out of your hands.

And when I looked at what was available to help women protect themselves, I kept finding the same thing: classes taught by men, through a male lens, built around striking techniques that bear no resemblance to the situations most women actually face. In fact, when we surveyed women in our community, 97% said they would not attend a self-defence workshop led by a man.

That is not a minor preference. That is an entire population of women being left without access to skills that could change, or save, their lives.

So I built something different. For women. By women.

What 1,000 looks like in real life

It looks like the woman who arrived at her first session barely able to make eye contact, and left standing taller.

It looks like the teenager who didn't think she was "the kind of girl" who does self-defence, who now tells her friends to come along.

It looks like the women who came to our workshops, felt the impact, and then came back: not as participants, but as volunteers. And some of those volunteers? They're now training to become instructors themselves, delivering sessions, empowering others, multiplying everything we've built.

That ripple effect is what Ignite Your Power was always meant to create.

The full picture

The 1,000 in-person milestone is enormous. But our reach goes further.

Through our online webinars and digital support, we've supported more than 1,500 additional women and girls, taking our total community reach to over 2,500 people in just two years.

I genuinely didn't know if we'd get here this fast. I hoped. But to see it become reality is something else entirely.

What comes next

We're not stopping at 1,000.

We're building a team of trained instructors; women who've lived this journey and are ready to carry it forward. Because the more of us doing this work, the more women and girls we reach. That's how movements grow.

1,000 is a milestone. Not a finish line.

If you'd like to be part of what we're building — as a participant, a future instructor, or a community partner — we'd love to have you with us.