Our series of blogs about Projects of Excellence highlighted in this year’s Global Impact Report continues! In this week’s SoroptiVoice blog Susan Bartlett of SI Keighley (UK) introduces SAME Women, a project to promote friendship and understanding between women from different cultures in the town. 

SI Keighley wanted a hands on project which met local need. We were aware of the multicultural structure of the town and that
there were limited opportunities for women within the different cultures to mix
socially. We decided to try and address this. We wanted to try and
help break down invisible barriers and reach out to women who would not
normally participate in activities outside of the home. It was hoped that the
two communities would learn more about each other.

We approached the head teacher at Eastwood School which
caters for children aged 4 -11 and mainly from a Pakistani background to see if
the project was viable, with his encouragement and the help of Zaibun Khan the
community outreach worker at the school, three initial sessions were planned. It
was important to explain about Soroptimism and for this we used Project Punjab
as a practical example. The mothers were enthusiastic
about the project and decided that they would like to support a school in
Pakistan themselves.

 

The first few meetings were about getting to know each
other and we did this by talking about common aspects of life for example
sharing photos of wedding ceremonies, and as food plays such an important role
in all our lives several sessions involved sharing skills in teaching each
other how to make simple dishes. We taught the Asian ladies how to knit and
they made shalwar kameez for us showing us how to do so. We went on walks out
into the Yorkshire Dales as this is not something that they tend do as families
and this developed into an excursion to the seaside.

A fundraising event took
place at the end of the summer term which raised £750 to support a school in
Pakistan; we made contact with Talat Pasha of SI Karachi Central and she
identified a school in need of help, we were able to meet Talat at the Brighton
conference and give her the money which was used to transform the school which
had been affected by floods. The following year the mothers managed to raise
£1300 which was given to Talat at the Belfast conference and was used to pay
the salary of a teacher at the school.

Image: the school in Pakistan before and after it was refurbished using funds raised by the project.

This project has been beneficial to both the club members
and the Asian mothers as we have all learnt about each other’s cultures and
have become good friends, sharing each other’s festivities – a Christmas
party and Eid celebrations. We have been out to the theatre and  for meals. As
Soroptimists we have learnt that we need to move forward at the women’s pace
and not to try to impose our values.

The women  have
become empowered to initiate projects involving the wider community and after a very successful first International Women’s Day event, they are taking the lead in planning our next event always trying to improve on what
has gone before. The mothers have supported local and national charities as
well as the school in Pakistan.

 

The main hurdle to overcome is the language barrier and
although we do have mothers whose spoken in English is not very fluent they
don’t tend to come as regularly; the other mothers do interpret but the
sessions can become very lively with several conversations taking place at
once. We use an interpreter at more formal sessions but most of our meetings
are very informal as this is what participants want. We regularly discuss how
they want the project to move forward what they want discussed or the type of
outings they would like as we feel that the project belongs to them as much as
us.

Read about SAME Women on the Global Impact Report website.

The SI Global Impact Report 2012-13 highlights 39 Soroptimist Projects of Excellence from around the world to educate and inspire.