In February 2017, Malmö Kvinnojour launched the podcast Vingar & Våld. Host Paula describes here the podcast, how it is designed and how it has been received:

The format of the podcast gives me the opportunity to create what I think is needed in the work against violence in close relationships; a room for women exposed to violence, a room free from judgment and full of reminders about their own power and about the possibility of a life free from violence. My desire and my purpose with Wings & Violence has become to create this room in the form of sound, image and message.

I believe in the importance of finding different ways to reach a person who is in crisis and I believe that there are more ways to do that than through regular support calls. Thanks to the podcast's format and character, one can on their own listen, create the images I describe and in peace and quiet get to feel what it is that is aroused inside. Yes, precisely because the listener does it on his own; at home, on a walk, on the way to work or in a sheltered accommodation, it gives the listener an opportunity to give himself a mere hour that can provide an insight - not only into the world of violence - but also into his own inner world.

What I consistently try to convey are reminders of the places inside a human being that no perpetrator can take away from one. After a woman told me that she felt her perpetrator had hijacked her brain, I wanted to do a podcast where I would try to reach the listener's heart.

The podcast is based on a world full of parables. On the edge of the world of violence stands a giant oak and it is to the oak that I invite my guests. Either we meet in the oak's treetop to talk about the view of the world of violence. Or we meet in a pot down among the oak roots. Down there, under the world of violence, there is a sanctuary full of music, poetry, dreams and visions.

In addition to the conversation with the guest, the listener is invited to a chronicle written by Madame Eli. Madame Eli is a real madame, a wise old woman, a wise gray-haired man, a dancing lone wolf. She is a pipe-smoking, caftan-bearing creature who puts dates in her mouth and presses with her tongue until the flesh has split and she can work out of the core. Madame Eli lives in one of my rooms in my heart and there, in her turquoise bathtub or on her yellow divan, she hammers down chronicles for Wings & Violence on a black typewriter. She gives her own interpretations of what is happening, either in the world of violence or in her own inner world.

Malmö Kvinnojour's hope with the podcast is to reach out to some of the twenty-five percent women in Sweden who are exposed to violence in a close relationship during their lifetime. We want to raise more perspectives, arouse new thoughts and shatter still living myths about violence in close relationships and we also want to reach relatives, friends and acquaintances as well as professionals in violence in close relationships.