Crescent Women+ Photography Group
Plymouth, , United Kingdom
All or nothing
This project needs 100% of its target
Aim: Empowering Women+ Through Creativity, Connection, and Community – Let’s Build a Brighter Future Together.
Help Us Build a New Home for Crescent Women+ Photography Group
Since 2022, Crescent Women+ Photography Group has been a powerful force of creative wellbeing in Plymouth.
Led by Fotonow CIC, founded and facilitated by Community Photographer, Emma Booth; we’ve created a safe, inclusive space where over 100 women+ individuals have come together to connect, create and build confidence through photography.
Every week, we meet to learn new skills, share stories, and support one another – whether through workshops, wellbeing days, exhibitions, or just spending time together in a welcoming environment.
Words from Emma, Crescent founder:
“Crescent is much more than photography alone, it's about individuals coming together and feeling part of something. I facilitate the group in a holistic sense, where we support each other to work on our individual goals, but also work together as a group to collaborate, which can be immensely healing and powerful. I’m passionate about holding space for women where we can connect in deeply meaningful ways and express ourselves authentically without judgement or expectation, with the invitation of creativity, play and curiosity in the sessions.”
But now we need your help to keep going - and to grow.
💡 Why We’re Fundraising
We want to highlight the growing importance of spaces outside of formal healthcare settings to support wellbeing and social connection.
We are seeking funding to ensure this vital creative resource is sustainable in the longer term and remains accessible to all by being free to attend. Our ambitions are to co-design a creative, wellbeing space, which is shaped and informed by the needs and experiences of Crescent’s long term participants to ensure that participants are leading on the next steps and continued relevance of the programme for this community.
We’re raising £25,000 to:
✅ Sustain our weekly Crescent Women+ sessions for 18 months - ensure the sustainability of Crescent’s future, support us in supporting the community
✅ Move into an exciting new city-centre space on Cornwall Street – a vibrant, central location which will provide our group with a vital space to create and connect
✅ Refurbish and make the new space safe, inclusive, and accessible - essential works such as fitting fire alarms, DDA improvements
✅ Invest in workshop delivery for meaningful creative engagement and support us in providing a safe space for the women+ community
✅ Create more visibility for women’s stories through public exhibitions, workshops and events
📸 What Crescent Has Achieved So Far
- 106 Women+ have participated since 2022
- Over 130 workshop sessions to date
- x3 public, annual exhibitions sharing the powerful works of Women+ and their stories, at venues The Talk Shop, St Saviours Hall and 37 Looe Street Gallery (the old Plymouth Arts Centre)
- x5 Wellbeing in Nature Immersion Days with Greenwood Music CIC
- Peer support that’s changed lives
- Safe, trauma-informed spaces where Women+ feel truly seen
Check out our Art and Activism Film, one of our favourite projects below:
See and support our current work in Plymouth!
We are currently launching a public exhibition campaign supported by the Violence Against Women and Girls Fund, thanks to Plymouth City Council.
Join us at 37 Looe Street Gallery to celebrate the culmination of an exciting 6-month project and all things Crescent Women+ Photography!
And we’re just getting started...
🌱 The Impact
Funding will sustain Crescent and support the group to become established in a new city centre venue and enable us to develop and share our successful model. Working towards sustainability, we would like to pilot progression routes for our participants, through training and other bespoke opportunities, with a view to replicating this model in other settings and locations.
Your donation will directly help us:
- Combat loneliness and isolation
- Improve mental wellbeing
- Develop creative skills and confidence
- Amplify women+ voices through art and exhibitions
- Grow a strong, lasting community of women+ photographers
- Continue our commitment to accessible creativity and support for all
Together, we’re building a sustainable creative community that uplifts and empowers – and challenges gender-based violence, inequality, and exclusion.
🎁 How You Can Help:
🌟 Donate whatever you can – every pound truly makes a difference in supporting the project and helps us impact lives!
🌟 Share this campaign with your network - We believe in the power of ordinary people coming together in community. We nurture change through grassroot movement. Help us to reach more people!
🌟 Sponsor a session or exhibition as an individual or organisation with a donation
From Our Community:
"Being part of Crescent helps me through my daily Mental Health struggles. I highly value being a member of Crescent because it has been my safe space and has helped me to believe in myself again. I am very grateful for Crescent and I don’t know what I would do without it."
"Undertaking work on post traumatic growth through the medium of photography, and it's powerful!!"
"It’s quite incredible what has been created and to experience what people bring to the group, when people are clearly going through a lot within their personal lives. It feels like an achievement to show up, leave everything at the door and create together."
"Crescent has been a blessing for me in times of uncertainty over the past few months, particularly when my physical health has been really scary, the group has been a great space for grounding and given me such stability and connection. I’m very grateful for this."
......
✨ Let’s Create a Home for Crescent
Help us move, grow, and continue to deliver what’s become a vital, life-changing programme for women+ in Plymouth.
Together, we can create a home for creativity, connection and community.
Let’s make this happen.
Follow Our Journey:
https://www.fotonow.org/work/crescent-women/
@fotonow_cic and @crescentfotonow
Funding method
All or nothing – this project will only receive pledges if it reaches its target of £25,000 by 26th August 2025 at 2:32pm