A Women's Aid charity has made the decision to change its name and logo to make it more identifiable with men and boys.

Berkshire East and South Bucks Women’s Aid is today launching a rebrand to become the Dash Charity, which stands for Domestic Abuse Stops Here, to make it more appealing to men and boys and remove the location from its name.

The charity says the services it offers has changed and evolved since its formation as a women’s refuge in 1976, and its name needs to catch up.

Tessa Osman, head of sustainability and development at the charity said: “We felt that with the name Berkshire East and South Bucks Women’s Aid, our locality is in our name and we see that as a bit of negative.

“We obviously support men and it is not currently an identifiable name so if a man or a boy feels that they are affected by domestic abuse, they are less inclined to pick up the phone and speak to a Women’s Aid."

At an event this evening, the charity is launching its new name, logo (pictured) and website which went live today. The whole rebrand only cost the charity £500, as the new website and logo were produced for free.

She said the name Dash also stands for domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and honour-based violence, which links to the risk indicator checklist completed with all clients to assess the level of risk they are currently in. This is a nationally used document and so is identifiable to those in the sector.

Osman said: “Berkshire East & South Bucks Women’s Aid will still be very much part of the charity and our history is so important to us, not to mention how proud we are of it; however, as we are providing so many specialist services we want our name to encompass the broad range on offer.”

Osman said the changes, which began last summer, are about being identifiable to others and showing the breadth of services on offer. She said that the charity decided to change the logo from the previous one (below) to make it look less gendered by ridding it of the pink. She said the colour purple was kept as it is a significant colour to the domestic abuse sector.

However she added that the charity’s aims, objectives and vision will stay the same.

The charity is affiliated with national charity Women’s Aid and this relationship will continue despite the change in name.

Osman said: “We have a fantastic relationship with Women’s Aid, they understand why we are making the changes. We will still be a part of Women’s Aid, but we just won’t have Women’s Aid in our name. They appreciate our change in services.

"We run as an independent charity and we have obviously made a decision to build our services as much as we can. It has been really positive.”

Women’s Aid said it could not comment on the actions of its affiliated charities.