My friend and former colleague Claudia Da Silva founded the London Centre for Personal Safety (LCPS) in 1981 and led the organisation until her death from cancer aged 64. Claudia was committed to providing free self-defence techniques to vulnerable members of society including those involved in prostitution, women living with domestic abuse, victims of crime, older people, children and adults with disabilities, homeless people and many more.
Claudia trained female tutors to provide self-defence skills and male tutors who, while wearing padded body armour, enacted attacks on participants, allowing them to use the techniques they had learned, at full force, in an adrenalin-fuelled but safe and controlled environment. This meant participants could employ their skills in a more realistic setting, against men of a bigger height and build.
This mixed-gender tutoring and Claudia's woman-led and feminist approach to self-defence was pioneering in the UK. Driven to understand and improve best practice in the area of self-defence, Claudia was a founder member and expert trainer for the National Women's Self-Defence Association.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Claudia's work saved lives. Training from the LCPS helped many to survive, overcome abuse and thrive. Her work was profiled in an article in the Guardian in 2007, with Claudia telling the journalist Julie Bindel: "We are changing the world one woman at a time."
Claudia was born in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil. Warm, loving, compassionate and generous, she was tested by the violence she suffered as a young woman: cruelties at her convent school, domestic abuse and state torture due to her opposition to the military dictatorship then governing her country. The latter furthered her resolve and inspired her to become an opposition leader. As a result of her experiences, Claudia was determined to help others fight back against the violence in their own lives.
She worked as a drama teacher and a journalist, exposing human rights abuses, before leaving Brazil to travel overland through Europe, the Middle East and Asia, living for a while in Portugal; eventually settling in Britain in 1976. Claudia trained and empowered thousands of people. She co-wrote and contributed to international and national policy on preventing and recovering from violence and abuse including a 2003 briefing from the Metropolitan Police, What Works in Avoiding Rape and Sexual Assault.
Claudia gained an MA in criminology from Middlesex University in 1999. She was chair of the Sapphire advisory group to the Metropolitan Police, working to tackle sexual violence. She also gave her time to organisations including Rape Crisis, the Women's Resource Centre and the London School of Capoeira.
Claudia is survived by her partner, Richard Chipping, her father and four half-sisters.