A Hoxton museum has launched a new campaign to challenge perceptions on homelessness, focussing on women and children.

Museum of the Home has launched the Behind the Door campaign last week in partnership with the London Homeless Collective, a group of over 25 charities.

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The campaign will run across two years, focus on homeless women and children and aims not only to raise money for the cause, but also to raise awareness and challenge perceptions. So far, it has already raised over £20,000.

Lucy Littlewood, director of partnerships at Museum of the Home, explained that the choice to focus on women and children is due to their vulnerability. It is a problem she finds particularly “striking and horrific”.

She said the goal is to encourage “the powerful women in the city to support the more vulnerable”, with women already involved including Kate Malone, a ceramic artist, and Polly Braden, a photojournalist.

The campaign has come as part of a revamp of the museum, Lucy said, with the goal of “reveal[ing] and rethink[ing] how we live”. Lucy said she hoped the museum would be “a place to start conversations, a force of change with tangible outcomes”.

Across the two-year campaign, the museum will hold events and exhibitions and organise talks and think tanks. The partnership will support the first pan-London strategy on ending homelessness by 2025.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter and a founding member of the London Homeless Collective, said: “We have a responsibility to act to bring this hidden problem to the public’s attention and work together to support women and families."

Rick Henderson, chief executive of Homeless Link, added: “With the Museum of the Home, we will be able to explore the homelessness that is happening every day in London, often behind closed doors, and often with women and families."

Lucy said that "ultimately", if visitors go to an exhibition, talk, workshop or festival and leave with "new knowledge and understanding" of homelessness, then "perhaps, collectively, we can help to tackle the problem".

Find out more at https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/join-and-support/behind-the-door/