UK's First Community Interest Company for Personal Safety Education.

A CIC built on a simple idea, Deliver real world personal and community safety while raising funds for the local community.

We wanted to take the time to introduce SOS Combatives and the great work we are doing, and what we plan to do in the future.

I'm Reece Reeve, founder of SOS Combatives CIC - A Community Interest Company in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

From Self-Protection Classes to Community Safety Education

Before launching SOS Combatives as a CIC, I was running it as a study group delivering weekly self-protection training to members in and around Southend & the Essex area.

I saw firsthand how personal safety training can impact lives, such as increased confidence in tough situations that extend into other parts of your life, not to mention the physical and mental well-being effects it can have.

As a perfect example of this, we had a student come to us after experiencing assault, which left them hospitalised. Understandably, this had a big impact on their lives to the point they didn't want to be left alone at the train station after our sessions. With our support, training and hard work, we got to a point where they were confident to walk to the train station alone because they now had the confidence and knowledge to defend themselves if that situation ever came up again.

That proved something to me, especially that given the right support and training,

Real-world personal safety education builds genuine confidence — not false confidence.

The Problem with Traditional Self-Defence Training

One major issue has always stood out to me: the people who need Personal Safety Training are the same people who are least likely to attend.

This includes people who have experienced domestic violence, vulnerable individuals and those with low confidence or past trauma.

There is a gap in traditional self-defence classes; they only teach people who are actively seeking training, and those who need the knowledge have lost the confidence or feel theres no point in learning after the fact.

This is where SOS Combatives is different, we want to help those people, not just with practical knowledge but with confidence, self-esteem and give them the skills needed to feel empowered. We do this by reaching out to the local community, working closely with charities that work with people in these situations and bringing the training to them so it's accessible and available.

Why Personal Safety Matters

In today's world, Community Safety Initiatives often face limitations due to liability and risk. SOS Combatives CIC was created to address these limitations and bridge the gap.

We want to teach practical personal safety education to those who need it.

We create realistic scenarios to ensure learning is relatable and actionable in similar situations.

We want to build stronger, more capable communities.

Through mentorship from Lee Morrison, continued community support and a desire to make the community a safer place for everyone, our role becomes more important every day.

Evolving into a specialist provider

As SOS Combatives grew from weekly sessions into a Community Interest Charity, so have our goals. Naturally, we are moving from teaching individuals to teaching the community. We are actively working on building relationships with local authorities and charities so we can deliver structured safety programs at scale.

The mission going forward

We are growing fast, and as a team, we are genuinely excited to see where our journey takes us. Being community-driven, we are always looking for ways we can have a positive impact on our local community. We do this by:-

• delivering structured safety programs in Essex and surrounding areas.

• Continue to reach out and support local charities through fundraising.

• build stronger, more capable communities that support each other.

Through mentorship from Lee Morrison and continued community support, we keep growing and evolving.

Why CIC, and what does that mean?

When we were looking at what we could do to help the community, we kept coming back to the community interest company business. This was the right choice for us, but what does it actually mean, and how is it different from an LTD company?

CIC means our work is directly tied to our local community, our success means the community benefits and being a CIC, we have specific guidance to follow to ensure that we actively help the community.

Everything we do is directly driven by the community, and our profits are put back into SOS Combatives so we can continue to help the community, local charities and organisations.

Our success is the community's success, and this is a big part of why we do what we do.

The SOS Combatives CIC Model

We operate on a dual mission.

1. Deliver real-world personal safety education

We already provide proven methods to give people the skills and confidence needed to defend themselves should they need to. We focus on

• Awareness

• Avoidance

• Decision-making under pressure

• Psychology

• Emotional context and the psychological effects of adrenaline

• last resort survival strategies

2. Fund Community Causes

   We reinvest back into the local charities and organisations that support vulnerable people in Essex. We want to teach people to protect themselves and support those who can't access it directly.

Protect yourself, Empower Others

We believe everyone has a purpose. Mine is clear.

To help people protect themselves and empower others through community impact.

Want to see what we do first-hand or see how we can help your organisation?

We want to reach as many people in our community as we can. It doesn't matter if you have 2 people to teach or 50; we offer structured training that works for you.

Get in touch today for a casual chat to see how we can help you.