Double win for Lancashire Women at Selnet Social Enterprise Awards 2026
Lancashire-based charity Lancashire Women has been named both New Social Enterprise of the Year and Social Enterprise of the Year 2026 at the Selnet Social Enterprise Awards, recognition that reflects the organisation’s growing impact and its innovative SHECANFIX service.
Lancashire Women took home two awards at the Selnet Socal Enterprise Awards ceremony, becoming one of the night’s standout winners in a field of organisations committed to social impact across the region.
The charity, established for 40 years, supports around 6,000 women annually across Lancashire, and was recognised in both the New Social Enterprise of the Year category, for its SHECANFIX trades and repair service, and the overall Social Enterprise of the Year 2026 award.
About SHECANFIX
SHECANFIX is Lancashire Women’s female-led trades and repair social enterprise, developed from the charity’s long-established Energy Advice and Handywoman service. It provides practical repairs, energy-efficiency improvements, and maintenance services delivered by trained female tradespeople, and is pioneering a new kind of service in Lancashire.
The service was created in direct response to women telling the charity they did not feel safe inviting male tradespeople into their homes. Lancashire Women works with women experiencing poverty, unsafe housing, poor mental health, and domestic abuse, and SHECANFIX was designed to meet a real and urgent gap: safe, affordable, trauma-informed home maintenance support.
Wider impact
The SHECANFIX model goes beyond offering a practical service. When the team visits a woman’s home, they don’t just carry out the work, they share what they know. Women regularly learn through observation, picking up skills and confidence alongside a freshly bled radiator or a repaired door frame. This ethos is now being formalised into a dedicated DIY training programme through SHECANFIX, designed to create clear pathways into trade careers for women and to help women feel more self-sufficient and confident in their own homes. Details of this new programme will be announced soon.
The Social Enterprise of the Year win recognises Lancashire Women’s broader portfolio of income-generating activity. SHECANFIX is central to this, not only supporting organisational sustainability, but actively challenging gender inequality by creating pathways into skilled employment for women, improving household resilience, and supporting financial independence.
Lancashire Women CEO, Siobhan Collingwood commented:
“We are incredibly proud to receive these awards. SHECANFIX was born from listening to women, women who told us they needed a service that felt safe, that understood them, and that could genuinely improve their lives at home. To be recognised in this way, alongside so many inspiring organisations, means a great deal to everyone at Lancashire Women.”
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