In the number of women trying to find places at refuges after suffering Domestic Abuse during the coronavirus lockdown. More than 40,000 calls and contacts were made to the helpline run by the Charity Refuge during the first three months of the pandemic, most from women who said they were suffering abuse. Our Home Affairs Correspondent june kelly has more. Home, for most their safe haven under lockdown. But for others, a place of fear and torment. Lockdown has affected my whole life, and made the abuse more obvious than ever before. When it would happen and when we we re it would happen and when we were on lockdown, things became worse. My husband, he pulled my hair, he threw me against the wall. Victims finally free to speak out about their lives under lockdown. For tanya, lockdown was the point. She finally fled her violent husband. When covid happened, he started drinking from early on in the morning. When he was drinking, he was getting very aggressive. He was actually hitting me, and he was violent to me, and he was using very abusive words on me. Mentally it was affecting me more. New figures show the national Domestic Abuse helpline run by the Charity Refuge has seen a huge surge in calls and contact in recent months. They now topped more than 40,000. This is how claire got help when her ex partner exploited the current lack of legal hearings and breached custody arrangements. For a time, and breached custody arrangements. Fora time, he refused to hand back their young daughter. Lockdown has opened the doorfor young daughter. Lockdown has opened the door for him to control me more than he did when we were together. Im a nervous wreck. I hand her over and im thinking, am i going to see her again . Lockdown has also seen a big increase in male Abuse Victims seeking help. Emergency money for all charities is due to run out soon, and they are calling for a government funding plan. And, as restrictions ease, a rising number of women are asking for refuge places, already in short supply before the pandemic. This is a perfect storm in some ways, in terms of not having really sustainable provision across england and wales, and now thinking about a much greater increase in demand. Tanya says her refuge place, which she was given by the charity south pole black sisters, as has been vital in helping herforge a new life. Ifi helping herforge a new life. If i had stayed in that house, i dont know whether i would have been here talking to you. Iam able have been here talking to you. I am able to see that light through the dark tunnel that i was walking through, and im able to see that right now. I think that life has given me another chance, and i dont wa nt to another chance, and i dont want to miss that chance. June kelly reporting there. Now on bbc news, Philippa Thomas hears from people around the world about their extraordinary experiences during the pandemic, and how covid i9 has changed their lives. Welcome to coronavirus your stories, a programme about how covid i9 is changing the lives of people around the world. Im Philippa Thomas. This week well be hearing stories of youth activism in the face of this crisis. In the philippines, we hear about a family Aid Programme to feed thousands of neighbours whove lost access to jobs and to food because of lockdown. In the us state of pennsylvania, a 17 year old tells me how shes managed to finish high school while taking on 30 hours a week as a supermarket worker to help fund her family. But we start with the story of a teenager in stockholm, whos been helping to get Vital Information about virus protection to vulnerable migrant communities. The parents of the 17 Warda Abdalla brought her from somalia to sweden when she was just a baby, giving her opportunities, she said, she would never have had otherwise. And as covid i9 hit sweden, she tried to do her bit to help those who are vulnerable to misinformation or panic. Me alongside the other ambassadors had one critical assignment, and that was to share information about the coronavirus. Basically, how to take precautions, how to protect yourself, and how to protect others. So we handed out leaflets in around 24 different languages. So, anything from finnish, to arabic, to russian, to somali. And as ambassadors we had different nationalities and we knew different languages. That also gave us a kind of wider approach. And this was to make sure that the information reached every single citizen in need. And i believe that the Swedish Community as a whole, were in need of this information. And what was it about these communities that made them so vulnerable, do you think . Why were they at risk . I believe that any community can be vulnerable and in a risk without the correct information and the proper procedures. I believe that as a community, theres always going to be loopholes, theres always going to exceptions, and thats why our workers and ambassadors were so important, so that every Single Person could take advantage of the knowledge that we were providing and handing out. When i was talking to people face to face, i was giving my community some kind of comfort and trust. Because if i was walking and i met someone trying to help me as a citizen, i would kind of feel safe and a bit more calm. Why did this matter to you so much personally . Were you thinking about your own parents, your own family as well . I was already working with the county on a democratic project for the youth before the pandemic started. And i do believe that my engagementjust kind of continued from there. But the main reason as to why i wanted to help work was because of my parents and the influence that they have on me. We are a family of help and i always picture myself when im working, i always picture my family, a home with parents that are new to the country, who have probably gone through hell and back, and have struggled to find a safe home for their family and theyre trying to adapt in this difficult time. Theyre trying to adapt to this new language. And on top of that, theres a pandemic going on and they dont know how to get information or understand the information. That is why its so important to kind of reach out to them. And even though covid i9 is affecting a certain risk group, i believe that no one is safe, and therefore i chose to spend my Easter Holiday out protecting those families, because i think of them just like i think of my own. Tell us a bit more about your family. I think you came to sweden when you were a baby, tell us about your family . Yes, i came to sweden when i was a baby. My parents bringing me to sweden did obviously come with difficulties. And im sure many people can relate. Them being old and therefore having a harder time learning the swedish language doesnt come as a surprise. My parents also came to sweden a very long time ago to provide me a better life. But, yeah, to provide me and my siblings now a better life to kind of ensure our safety and our future, and i do believe that the hardship they have gone through, day in and day out, gives me the dedication to truly do everything at heart. Thats why i work with the democratic project with the youth, because i want kids to understand democracy, and my dad being in one of those risk groups, just makes me realise even more how important the job that i was doing was. Because if i manage to inform just one person who may not have realised that they had symptoms and keep that person out of the streets, i may have saved someone from contracting the virus. And ijust believe that life is so precious and my parents have taught me to never take it for granted. I hear you talking about the importance of understanding. And im thinking about members of your community who might not understand or speak english as articulately as you do, or even speak swedish. Theres then the potential for getting the wrong kind of information, isnt there . About something scary like a virus . Yes, i do believe that the wrong information and wrong facts are going around, especially on social media. People are getting the wrong information in the wrong language because they might not understand english or they might not understand the swedish language, thats why its so important again that the youth workers are out there, giving out the right information to people so people arent scared and feeling afraid and not feeling anxiety over covid i9. Im now thinking about you as youth workers being out there. And we know that sweden hasnt had an official lockdown like many other european countries. What did you think about that . Personally, i do think its kind of, like, hard to understand why. But i do believe that whatever decision they made was with good intentions. It is the country that i live in and the country i was raised in. What i seem to understand was in the beginning i think i was scared when the first news came out that the pandemic was real and it was on the move. I believe that im not the only one that felt panicked, felt anxiety, or just felt the feeling of being afraid, the feeling of fear. Did you feel a pull there, a tug, because teenagers want to go out and be with their friends . I think in the early stages i was understanding and i do think the teenagers all around the world were understanding. We knew what was at risk. People were dying, people saying covid i9 had taken peoples grandpas, aunts, mothers, sons. We understood the necessity of staying home because we were protecting the people that we love. And we were taking responsibility. But i do think when you stay home for this long, its just something happens. You may not be able to, you know, go out orjust the feeling of being close to other people kind of affects you. It kind of affects your mentality. So age doesnt really matter. I think the maturity that you sit on is what determines if youre understanding. If youre understanding enough to think about others rather than think of yourself. We have just like many teenagers around here in sweden taking online classes, so i havent seen my classmates for so long. And adults stay home if they can, they work from home, and they havent been able to see their colleagues. So i think theres a balance there, therefore being a teenager and being and other is the same thing. Were all having a hard time. How confident you feel about your future . I believe in the swedish government, i do feel very confident. I am pretty sure were all going to be just fine. I am very positive and optimistic about the future. Warda abdalla in stockholm, sweden. Lets take you now to philadelphia, in the us state of pennsylvania, where ive been talking to one of thousands of teenagers whove been picking up more essential work as adults around them either get or shield from covid i9. Gloria lumbrano torres has been working 30 hours a week in a supermarket as well as trying to finish high school. I was working more hours, so the amount of time that i had to do my homework was, like, minimal. But i could have still done it because it was online school, so it didnt really matter what time of the day i would be able to log in and do my homework. Tell us about the juggling you are doing with your work and school . I tried to manage time, but, at the time i fell back on my schoolwork because i was more focused on work than school, i think. And your work was essential, i mean, you were one of the key workers. Ithought, you know, essential workers were like firefighters, but i never really thought i would be in a position where i would call myself an essential worker, you know . Were you worried or frightened, working as a cashier, at a time when this virus is going around . Yeah, at times. Because you never know whos coming down the line or coming down the register and could possibly have it. In the end, you did get covid i9, didnt you . How was that . Yeah, i did get it. It was not severe for me, but theres the few people that i know that, um, friends of my family, that have passed away. So i am grateful that it didnt hit me as hard. And tell us something about how you doing more hours at work and bringing home more money was able to help your household. There are quite a few people in your house, i think . It just gave more leniency towards my aunt. She has been my provider my guardian since i was three years old. So i thinkjust bringing out that stress from her was just a big relieverfor her, since she wasnt working at the time. Your aunts been looking after you since you were three, tell us a little more about that . So my mum was in a coma for 10. 5 years and my dad was never really in the picture. So she is she took me in when, um, i had nobody. And shes been taking care of me since my mum got sick. And shes. Shes my all. Gloria, ifeel as if you have had to grow up very fast. I know youve now graduated high school. But it must have been quite a source of tension for you, having to deal with whats going on, and being at the front line . Yeah, i think so. But i think all your life experience, like the fact i didnt have a mum and dad, and i still have to get my things on my own, like no other kid, like, just that itself is like an obstacle. So if i could overcome one obstacle, i think i could overcome multiple. So youve got through high school graduation, youve made it through high school, gloria, and i think unlike your mum and your aunt, youre a us citizen . What do you want to do next . What opportunities do you want to get to . Well, i want to go to college, to Montgomery Community college for my four years, and then eventually go to temple, or a business degree. My aunt, she didnt get the same experience that i did. She never really got an education when she was young. At the age of five, she was put to work, so she never really got that education so im going to take advantage of my opportunities and get the education that i want. Gloria, looking forward to a brighter future. Youre watching coronavirus your stories. A programme about how covid i9 is changing lives around the world. Im Philippa Thomas. 0ur third personal story this week comes from the philippines where a 24 year old and her siblings have set up a food aid project because they realised that in their town, lockdown meant the loss ofjobs and the loss of access to food for thousands. My family and i, ever since march, started a Food Programme which is basically similar to our own personal relief operations. After four months weve managed to procure and distribute up to 200,000 pieces of food and relief in order to provide for tens of thousands of people. Ever since march, many have lost either temporarily or permanently, their main or sometimes only source of income, because the lockdown has spanned for months long, people have ended up using up all of their savings. People have ended up selling almost all of their items at home, just to be able to get whatever form of income they can. Chantal, you are talking about some essential food. Theres also a need for milk for babies . At our peak i think i was receiving 30 50 messages on Facebook Messenger from different mothers in the community asking for help because their children couldnt just drink water, couldnt drink coffee, sometimes couldnt drink water with sugar, they needed milk, so we used our general donor fund to procure childrens milk on a daily basis and to distribute this milk to the different households of the mothers we were in contact with, so at our peak we were distributing milk to about 100 mothers every week. Chantal, this is a lot of work and a lot of organisation for you and your brothers. Tell me something about you and your family. What made you so determined . My father and my mother are both doctors, but for the majority of their profession, in fact, for my father for all of his professional career, he has chosen to serve the underserved. He chose to forgo a private practice in order to service the patients in government hospitals. Sometimes he hardly charges anything, because he feels as if medicine and health, before anything, is service to other people, and i think growing up, this is the type of upbringing weve had in a sense really embedded and asked, a call to service, call to use our profession, our capabilities and our resources to see what kind of impact we can have on others, especially the underserved and the marginalised. And so clearly when we saw a need in our very hometown, my brothers and i really just had to act. And what do you think gave you and your brothers the stamina to keep going with a project like this . I have been a badminton player for ten years of my life, im pretty sure my coaches have challenged me enough to do the heavy lifting on and off the court. My brothers, likewise. They are all National Athletes. One is still in high school but the others are National Athletes for basketball. I think the competitive, the driven and the never say die spirit that was in us through all those years of athletic training and competing really helped us continue on, despite all the challenges, despite all the trials and again negativity that we may face and that we have been facing over the four months that we have been conducting this Food Programme. And for everyone that you have helped during this time of coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, what are you hearing back . What kind of messages do you get . Honestly, weve been hearing the best of messages, and i say this not with a boastful heart but with a very, very grateful heart. People in the communities, especially those that we have reached, that we have helped give milk to, give relief packs to, would send messages, would send videos and pictures of their children with the milk or with the food, just thanking us for the support and the food or relief we have given them. Thank you and honestly when you think about it, what did we really just give them . We gave them five kilos of rice, 14 pieces of canned goods, maybe a box of milk. To a lot of people, thats nothing. That is something thats part of their grocery list. But the way they thank you, it just shows that for them, what you gave, regardless of how small you think it is, actually means the world. To a lot it mightjust be their world because they survive on a day to day basis, and so really you think that when you give youre the one on the giving end but really when you give, you are the one on the receiving end because you are touched, youre changed and youre basically allowed to be the type of person we all were supposed to be, which is basically persons for others, especially for those who need support the most. Would you describe for our viewers around the world what your town, what cainta is like . A lot may not know this outside of the philippines but cainta is the catch basin of manila, so when the typhoons come in, and they do so every year we are always heavily affected but this has resulted in us and our people being as resilient, as caring and as say, really supportive as we can, in terms of helping one another. So this is really the kind of town that we have. In our language we have what we call the bayanihan spirit, which is basically a heroic spirit, but a type of heroism that is rooted not in self glory and strength, but in your ability to reach and help other people out, and over the course of the lockdown we have seen this bayanihan spirit within our town. Thousands and thousands of people donating what they can for our marginalised communities. Someone even donated washing machines, so really i think that if you were to have me describe our town, i would give you the figures. We have 322,000 people. For a suburban town, we are small, relative, maybe to other cities in the country, but we are one of the most resilient, hard working, and caring people. And i have heard about the resilience in your community, that resilience is really needed now, because i guess in the philippines as a whole, covid has hit quite hard. Yes indeed. 0ur cases are still rising and we still have a lot to change, to improve and to refine in terms of our programmes, our policies and the support we give out to our marginalised communities and sectors. Resilience really is key but honestly, more than any form of leadership i believe in the power, and again, the resiliency of the filipino people. We have gone through a lot. We have gone through typhoons, through colonialism, through a lot of other factors and we will get through this pandemic because i believe in the power of the filipino people. I believe that through our wit, our resilience and our capabilities, we can find a way to change what we have to change, improve what we have to improve and do what we have to do in order to get through this pandemic even stronger, better, and in greater shape. Chantal there ending this weeks edition on youth activism in the face of coronavirus. Im Philippa Thomas, thank you forjoining us for coronavirus your stories. Hello there. For many parts of the country, friday will be a drier, brighter, and warmer day. For a while on thursday, the rain was actually quite heavy. It has since eased off, but there is still some cloud around in more southern parts of the uk. The next area of cloud is looming large in the atlantic, and that will bring some rain eventually. But for much of friday, we are in between two weather systems, and hence that drier theme. Eventually this next area of cloud and rain on those weather fronts will come into some western areas. But ahead of that, quite a range of temperatures a bit cooler in scotland where weve got clear skies, but quite a warm and muggy start for southern parts of england and wales. Theres more cloud around, and there may still be 1 2 showers around on friday. Still for a while, therell be some showers running into the far north of scotland, but elsewhere a lot of dry weather with some sunshine at times. It will cloud over in Northern Ireland from mid afternoon onwards, and well start to see some rain coming in from the west. But ahead of it, 18 celsius in Northern Ireland, a bit warmer in eastern scotland, widely in the 20s in england and wales, 25 26 celsius in the southeast of england. Now for the test match, its the third test match, england against the west indies at old trafford again. The first day looks like itll be dry. But over the weekend, we may have to dodge some rain. The weather is turning much more unsettled, particularly for saturday. Therell be some strong winds over weekend, warmer when the sun comes out but there may well be some heavy, perhaps thundery downpours. And well see some rain pushing its way eastwards on friday night into saturday to clear away. Then as it brightens and we get some sunshine, we introduce some more of those heavy, perhaps thundery showers with the chance of rain coming back into some southern and southeastern parts of england. Now the detail may change, but you cant really rely on any lengthy spells of dry weather on saturday, and temperatures will be 18 21 celsius and quite breezy, as well, staying that way into sunday. Perhaps some stronger winds arriving in the northwest of the uk closer to that area of low pressure. Thats where we will see most of the rain. Therell be some sunshine on sunday with some showers around too, more likely across northern and western areas, perhaps merging at times to give some longer spells of rain in scotland, particularly in the west. Temperatures on the whole may be a little bit lower for much of the country on sunday, but a drier day for eastern parts of england, and those temperatures may be a little bit higher. Welcome to bbc news. Our top stories cancelled because of coronavirus President Trump calls off the republican convention, one of the partys biggest pre election events. Us secretary of state mike pompeo calls on the world to turn on china, warning of a new tyranny from beijing. Researchers warn the amount of plastic ending up in the ocean could nearly triple in the next 20 years unless urgent action is taken. They were postponed by the pandemic. The tokyo 0lympics were supposed to start today