From Jean 

"On March 9th 2017 I began to ride my bike for murdered women. I did this initially as a personal and private tribute to women killed by a current or former partner or family member. I felt lucky to be riding my bike that day. I knew I could easily have been one of them.

I quickly realised that I would like this to be an awareness raising project to help raise funds for women's refuges and women's services that would help to save women's lives. A woman is murdered on average every 4 days as a result of domestic abuse in the UK.

I name each of the rides I do after an individual woman murdered by a man as a result of domestic abuse since 2016. I have now ridden for 324 women and 8300 miles. It has become the most important thing I have ever done in my life. Every time I climb on the bike, I carry the weight of each woman's story on my back. The horrific details of her brutal murder by a man often reduce me to tears. I think of her broken and grieving family. Of children left behind without a mother. Mothers without daughters. Friends without friends. Sisters without sisters. Brothers without sisters. An endless list of lives in tatters and loved ones struggling to plug the gaping hole where grief for the lost woman leaks out. 

Last year on 7th September 2019 at 1pm I asked women to join me for just one ride and they did. From all over the UK and globally. It was a profoundly difficult thing for many of them to do as survivors themselves and it was also incredibly moving. I was grateful to every woman who did and we raised an amazing £11,000. I have continued to ride since them and the total is over £16,000. The generosity of people astounds me. Thank you to them. 

Now I am asking again. It is a big ask during a global pandemic. We can't get together and ride which makes us feel safer and makes it an event where we collectively celebrate the lives of our murdered sisters. But I think we can still unite with each other in our hearts wherever we are. I think we can, and must, do our murdered sisters proud once more. 

On 11th July 2020 at 1pm I'd like to ask as many women as possible to join me again for what is now the annual "RideForMurderedWomen". From wherever you are please ride as far as you wish, on any route you choose in order to  help me honour the lives of women murdered by men who were intimate partners or family members. Please wear something red and carry the name of a woman or women from the list of women I have ridden for so far and will provide in my blog. If you feel safe and comfortable please upload a photo from your ride on the hashtag on that day so that we can be "digitally" together and make something as moving as possible as a tribute for the women we ride for. Please think of the woman as you ride and celebrate her life and her name. If you want to ride inside on an exercise bike or use a wheelchair or even, for this year just walk and carry a picture of a bike, please do. 

This ride is WOMEN ONLY. This is because the women I ride for are women only. Men are the ones who murder them.

Once again, as they have continued to, funds will go to nia. Karen Ingala Smith, their wonderful and courageous CEO has been counting dead women for too long. Let us help her save some."

From nia - 

"nia is a proudly feminist, secular, rights-based, charity supporting women, girls and children who have been subjected to sexual and domestic violence, including prostitution.

Last year we provided face-to-face support to over 1,500 women and girls, including 490 women identified as being at high risk of serious domestic violence, 380 women and girls who had experienced sexual violence, 147 who had sought support via their GP, 26 women seeking to exit prostitution and 23 women who lived in our specialist refuges for women with problematic substance use. A further 983 women and/or family/friends/agencies enquiring on behalf of survivors of sexual violence were supported through our helpline.

nia, uniquely for a small service provider, sees our advocacy role as existing both within our one-to-one work with women, girls and children (summarised above) and simultaneously at institutional and social levels. If we don’t contribute to changing the status of women and girls and developing awareness of and resistance to men’s violence against women and girls, we can’t claim to be contributing to ending domestic and sexual violence. It’s important to us that nia, as a feminist charity, doesn’t lose sight of the wider social change that we would like to see for women and girls.

Karen Ingala Smith has been chief Executive of nia since 2009. In 2012, following the murder of a young woman in Hackney she began recording and commemorating UK women killed by men in a campaign called Counting Dead Women."