40 years of supporting women’s health in South Tyneside
Women’s Health in South Tyneside (WHiST) turned 40 in 2026, and we’re looking back across the decades to the years since our foundation in 1986.
With the help of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we’re digging into our archives and recording women’s stories to commemorate 40 years of empowering women across decades of social change.
We aim to honour the strength, diversity, and resilience of women who have shaped our community: how women have coped, thrived, and led change. This will commemorate our past but also inform our future.
Since 1986, WHiST has amassed a great number of documents, images and press clippings. Our volunteers are working to catalogue and digitise these so that they’re more readily available to aid future research. Additionally we are building a collection of oral histories which will be made publicly available over the course of 2026-2028, and some of these will be edited into thematic podcasts.