MOON x Action for Women

Throughout December, we’re honoured to partner with Action for Women in supporting refugee women who are rebuilding their lives after surviving violence. When you visit MOON this month, you’ll have the option to add just 1 CHF at checkout — a small gesture that makes an enormous difference. Each franc helps keep the LEILA Crisis Line open, offering immediate emotional safety, compassionate guidance, and access to long-term recovery through programs like the Pomegranate Project.

It may feel like a tiny contribution, but together these small acts create real protection, dignity, and hope: a woman sleeping safely for the first time, signing her first housing contract, or rediscovering her smile. When many hearts give a little, it becomes something truly life-changing.

To launch the campaign, we sat down with the founder of Action for Women, Gabrielle Tay, for a heartfelt conversation. Read her inspiring answers below.

1. For people who don’t yet know your work, can you share what a 1-CHF donation actually makes possible for a woman arriving in Athens after surviving violence?

When a woman arrives in Athens after surviving violence, what she needs most is immediate emotional safety and someone who understands her reality. That 1-CHF donation helps us provide exactly that: It keeps our LEILA Crisis Line active, so she can speak to someone trained to listen with care and guide her through her options. It also helps connect her to information, protection pathways, and our long-term recovery program, the Pomegranate Project. One franc may seem small, but it helps ensure that no woman has to navigate that first terrifying step alone

2. What is the biggest barrier that refugee women face once they finally receive asylum, and how does Action for Women step in when all other support suddenly disappears?

Receiving international protection after fleeing conflict and violence for women, should feel like the end of the struggle, but it’s the moment everything collapses: Government hosting in camps far away from the cities, and cash support stop immediately. They are pushed out to navigate life having no way to reach language classes or services previously. In some camps there is just one social worker for 800 to 1,000 people, so expecting women to navigate the system alone is impossible.

The national integration programme, HELIOS, exists in theory, but its requirements: stable housing, documents, contracts, language lessons: are completely out of reach for women. So they and their children are left unprotected and isolated overnight. That’s exactly where Action for Women steps in: providing our services in a women-only space, support, guidance and recovery, because ‘safety on paper’ still leaves her profoundly vulnerable.”

3. This season, our community at MOON can add just 1 CHF at checkout. Why does this kind of partnership, small contributions from many people, matter so much?

Partnerships like MOON’s matter because they turn something tiny into something life-changing. The truth is, the world feels really heavy right now and a lot of the big problems feel too big for any one of us to fix. But most of us can spare 1 CHF, and some of us, even more, and when thousands of people add that tiny amount at checkout, it keeps our crisis line open and our women-only space running.

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. And when we all contribute just a little, it becomes real protection for women who have survived the worst. It shows them that even in a world that can feel so dark, there’s a community choosing to stand with them.

4. What does hope look like for the women in your program, and what moment from this year touched you the most?

Hope looks different for every woman, but it always reveals itself in the small, life-changing moments that we are honoured to witness. It’s the first night she sleeps without fear. The first time she laughs again. It’s that real, unguarded smile when she walks into our shelter and knows that she and her children will finally sleep safely. It’s the moment she tells us, ‘I feel like myself again.’

And for others, hope is deeply practical: Signing their own housing contract for the very first time, receiving her first paycheck from a fair and safe job because our social worker made sure she wouldn’t be exploited, or passing her Greek language exams, and navigating the hospital on her own for the first time and realising, ‘I can do this.’

These moments may seem small from the outside, but for them, each one is a step toward a future they finally believe they can have.