Healthy Holidays Supports BAME Women

Womenzone are to benefit disadvantaged women and young people across the Bradford District with a focus on engaging, empowering and educating through the promotion of social inclusion.

With Healthy Holidays Bradford Funding, Womenzone delivered a highly successful holiday activity provision over the last few months in order to meet the needs of BAME young people and their families who are at disproportionate risk due to Covid-19.

 

Can you describe your organisation and the people/communities you support?

Womenzone is a women-only organisation supporting over 2000 underserved BAME women and girls from deprived communities annually.  Promoting gender equality and women’s rights through health and well-being activities, training opportunities and creating fairer access to services for women and girls of all ages from Bradford.

Taking a community development approach, we support women to build on their own strengths for the benefit of their families and communities.  Some of the women we support are socially isolated, unable to speak English fluently, have poor levels of education and little economic independence. Low self-esteem, mental and physical health issues are frequently present.

 

How have you been supported by GiveBradford and what has this funding enabled you to do? 

GiveBradford has supported Womenzone over the years to help eliminate holiday hunger amongst school aged children and young people. Our most recent project addressed the emerging needs of young people which have arisen as a direct result of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. It allowed us to deliver essential provision benefiting predominantly BAME young people, this would have not have been made possible without GiveBradford’ s continued support.

Our provision offered nutritious hot meals to over 50 children each day in the school holidays and we also provided each family with a cultural food parcel. Activities took place via zoom and we supplied families with equipment and resources to remain mentally stimulated and physically active.

 

Can you give us an example of an individual and or group and how they have responded to this work?

Towards the end of the Programme, an unemployed single mother of 7 children gave her thanks for the ongoing support Womenzone provided to her family without which she said she could not imagine what she would have done. If she didn’t contact Womenzone for support, it really worried her to think of the consequences. We also received heart touching thank you notes from children for the hot meals and activity packs we provided them in the school holidays.

 

What challenges and opportunities do you face as an organisation in the current climate?

The wards that Womenzone works with all fall in the bottom 5 – 10% most deprived in the UK.  The unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19, social distancing and stay at home measures have further exaserbated financial pressures on the women we work with.

Evidence shows that BAME communities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, this tied with the poverty that our beneficiaries face means that Womenzone has not only to look for more funding and grants opportunities, but has to also prepare itself for the forthcoming challenges as a result of the pandemic.

Over the last year, we have adapted our services to operate through lockdown to support and signpost people. We have launched a digital well-being service offering advice and guidance around coronavirus and its vaccination in community languages, access to nutritious meals and food parcels and befriending but we cannot meet the increasing demand.

 

How is your organisation preparing for the future, and what kind of funding is needed?

We have continued to support vulnerable/disadvantaged families during the lockdowns since March 2020 and have been recognised for our responsive services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.  As life begins to return to a new ‘normal’ the support structures that people have built into their lives will start to crumble and community contact will reduce as people are more focused on overcoming their individual struggles as a result of COVID-19.

Although our services have been available online and we continued to keep in touch with the local community there is still a lot of work to be done to re-assure families that it is safe to attend face-to-face provision.  Our priorities are to seek contracts and grants to continue some of the most needed services as result of the pandemic to meet the current needs of vulnerable women and their families.