We started our project in early February to bring in services such as Tell Mama (who support victims of anti- Muslim hate), working with professionals from Bury Council to address concerns around FGM, honour based violence and forced marriages, liaising with Awakening Minds to raise awareness on mental health, Proud Trust who work with faith communities to raise awareness on LGBTQ, Bury GMP, we gained excellent confidence in building workshops, built relationships, organised public speaking workshops and hosted two community events together with our service users and engaged them with local authorities.
The workshops wed engage with 30-40 women every time and at the events we have had up to 100 people attend, one of these events was a round table discussion to celebrate and evaluate this project, considering views/opinions from those who took part in the project and linking them in with local professionals from Bury council VCFA, GMP and other third-party organisations operating within the Borough.
The second event we celebrated was for the women who took part in the project, showcasing their achievements to their family and friends who all reside within the neighbourhood. All these workshops and events were delivered additionally to our services and engaged the participants on a grassroots level.
Our aim was to run a project that brings together women that have attended our community events, all who live local to Moorside, Redvales, and Bury East to come together on a weekly basis to address issues such as social isolation, mental health, tackle hate crime especially around islamophobia and other forms of racism as well as force marriages and FGM.
We gained a Better understanding of what is hate crime and able to differentiate between hate incident and hate crime; Understanding the different forms of hate crime; Understanding of and connecting with local and national organisations that support victims of hate crime. For example, Bury Council, Tell MAMA, CST, Faith Matters UK and Proud Trust.
The Steps to reporting hate using TRUE VISION with the GMP colleagues. In addition to this we built new friendships and relationships and a better Understanding of different cultures.
We raised More awareness of Domestic violence, how to identify signs and confidence to challenge this behaviour. Also, Awareness on extremism such as Honour Based violence, FGM and forced marriages. Many of the ladies did not know that it was a CRIME to force your child to get married as they felt it was culturally appropriate. We changed many misconceptions of women throughout this whole project.
In addition to this the women built themselves in confidence throughout this project.
