On Sunday 29th June, Mark 'Panda' Parton who owns Panda Boxfit Camp put on a charity pad smashing session in collaboration with Priya Dawkins at The Arborfield Community Centre. The event was held to raise awareness for violence against women and girls (VAWG) and to help raise money for two charities who help tackle VAWG causes. Priya is a Ms GB pageant finalist and uses the platform to raise awareness for VAWG. Mark approached Priya about holding the event after seeing she was raising funds and awareness for VAWG after her own lived experiences and how boxing is a massive trauma recovery tool for herself, hence why she loves attending her weekly Panda Boxfit Camp sessions. At the event Priya spoke about her lived experience of VAWG and how that lead to her being so passionate about fighting the cause as well as all the work she does in the sector ranging from becoming dual qualified in domestic and sexual violence, setting up her own support forum which has grown to over 1400 members, to volunteering at charities, training, key note speaking, getting involved in numerous initiatives and going above and beyond to support and empower those who have been through similar experiences. In the future Priya hopes to be able to create a safe space for other survivors to be able to try out combat sports or self-defence training to support and empower them in their recovery journey too. The event was a huge success and over 30 members of the local community were in attendance, ranging in ages and boxing experience yet loved by all who took part.Priya and Mark want to thank everyone who attended on the day, to all those who donated to the cause and donated their time to help make it a success. It was amazing to see representation from various local clubs including Panda Boxfit Camp, The Batcave and Wokingham Boxing Academy on the day too. As a result of all of the support we received, we managed to raise over £400 from the event taking the total funds Priya has raised so far to almost £800 all of which will go directly towards supporting those impacted by gender-based violence. Special thank you to all those local businesses and individuals who kindly donated amazing raffle prizes for the event too. Do you want to try out a Panda Boxfit Camp pad smashing session? We'd love to see you there, classes are help every Wednesday from 6.30pm at Arborfield Community Centre.
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