Launching its pilot scheme, Women’s Aid and Lime have partnered together this International Women’s Day to support survivors of domestic violence with access to free e-bike and e-scooter travel in London.

The ‘ride to refuge’ scheme will be aimed at women living in refuge accommodation and will be piloted in London with Women’s Aid member organisations and provide survivors with access to 100,000 free minutes of active travel in 2024. There’s also the potential that the scheme will be extended to other UK cities in the future.

The free travel will be distributed with a special code sent to all Women’s Aid member services and organisations that support women that are survivors of abuse, which will then be distributed to the women they support. Women’s Aid staff and volunteers will also receive a 50% discount on Lime’s services.

The new scheme comes as Women’s Aid latest research shows that almost half of domestic abuse services were forced to run their organisation without dedicated funding. This comes after the recent news that many local councils were facing additional cuts with domestic abuse charities running the risk of being some of the first to have their funding cut due to their services being deemed non-statutory.

These are organisations that often go to great lengths to ensure survivors can reach and access their services – including accommodation. Women’s Aid has already partnered with the Rail Delivery Group for its ‘rail to refuge’ scheme for free train services for survivors and also its ‘road to refuge’ with National Express, which provides free coach travel.

This International Women’s Day, Women’s Aid launches ‘ride to refuge’ scheme with Lime