WELLBEING PROJECT
About us
We support the emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing of our Sex Workers by listening to you and improving with feedback all the time.
Umbrella Lane started with a vision - that self-compassion and connection could work to remove stigma in the sex work industry. We are here to build you up for the greater wellbeing and fulfilment of our community so that Sex Workers can lead more embodied, resilient lives.
There are other services that cater for Sex Workers doing some great stuff out there, don’t get us wrong. But what we felt when we started Umbrella Lane that there was a lack of focus on the individual, the people living and actually affected by sex work – you, the Sex Workers. Over our years of research and experience, we found that most Sex Workers report a low quality of life. This is partly due to the lack of services and support available to Sex Workers specifically, and partly due to the strong stigma that has Sex Workers afraid to get help when they need it.
Afraid of judgement or shaming. Well, we stepped in to change things.
We provide a safe space, a community of Sex Workers joining together to achieve greater fulfilment and deeper connections through supportive conversations. We believe Sex Workers are deserving of happiness and a high quality of life, and so we offer you our wide range of support services. We are here for you, not the industry.
We started as a humble group of friends and supportive allies, both in sex work and in life. We shared a vision of creating a community of people with lived experience where Sex Workers had reliable access to peer support and stigma-free services throughout Scotland. Four years’ time and a bucket load of on-going commitment, and we have built a volunteer-led project which has gained the trust of Sex Workers: the foundation of Umbrella Lane, who run and benefit from our support and community.
Umbrella Lane founder, Anastacia, was selected as a Social Entrepreneur Fellow by The Packard Foundation in 2019. Embarking on their ‘A Million Realities’ programme gave us the golden opportunity to secure better funding...
Enter the birth of our Glasgow community space!
Where our doors are now open to over 500 Sex Workers across Scotland.
Where we enable connection, provide therapies, health care and workshops for increased quality of life.
Where we hold space for compassionate conversations to support the individual.
Where we support more embodiment in order to heal emotional experiences.
And where we expand our services to Sex Workers globally through numerous online events.
We now work with the support of our partners and allies, and of course, our community of Sex Workers, who we are always led and informed by to achieve a positive wider conversation.
Our values
As the Umbrella Lane sex worker wellbeing project grows stronger, so do our values. With every day we enable more outward and inner compassion from an embodied understanding of your own emotional experiences.
Compassion
To ourselves and others. We extend compassion, love and kindness to all Sex Workers, allies and supportive projects.
Embodied
We enable and support greater embodiment, a practice which helps us to understand our emotional experiences, which we can use to heal our relationship with ourselves and each other.
Caring
We are invested in your best interests, both as a Sex Worker and, most importantly, as a person in life.
Accepting
Feeling accepted and understood is fundamental at Umbrella Lane. We prioritise person-centred needs to be accepted, acknowledged and met without judgement or shame.
Lived Experience
Bringing in allies who respect the learning value of lived experience, Sex Workers are at the centre of our community.
Wellbeing
Emotional, physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.
Our commitment to you
We’re committed to the respect for your choices, celebration of diversity and inclusion, whilst ensuring your safety and privacy at every turn. Although Umbrella Lane is mainly English spoken, we are a safe space for migrant Sex Workers who wish to join us. As we grow our community of wonderfully diverse Sex Workers from all sexualities, genders and backgrounds, our dream is to provide multilingual resources so that our impact reaches further. We are committed to you as an individual, regardless of residency status or background.