You may remember my recent post calling for fabrics to support a sewing project for African women refugees in Glasgow who suffer from mental health problems. What a wordy phrase, and of course that description is a very crude simplification of lots of issues. Anyway, Karibu is a refugee community organisation based in Glasgow which brings together French speaking women refugees from Africa and looks at what they can do to improve their situation as lone parents, women with no access to money, women who have been through hell and back to get here and then were disempowered by the asylum system  in this country, and as parents living in a very different culture and with all the clashes of values and customs that can cause. Karibu does lots of things, and the sewing project is one of the most recent endeavours.

The history to my involvement is short - I got a phone call and request for fabric and knowing how therapeutic crafting can be, was all ears. I sourced fabric from my own home, asked my colleagues, got some unused fabrics from the office together and asked one of our charity shops for rejects. This time I didn't get any fabric through posting on the blog. Still, there was about 3 bags worth of fabric.

Today, Karibu exhibited the first finished sewing projects at the Govanhill International Women's Day Celebration at Govanhill Neighbourhood Centre. I had a sneak preview last week when I dropped off another bag, so I already had had a chance to admire the colourful robes, quilted cushions, beautiful head gear and practical oven gloves/aprons. What I saw today was also a lot of happy and cheerful faces. The women wore traditional outfits, the children had their hair plaited in the most adorable fashion and everyone was chatting, smiling, enjoying food and company.

And as ever, Karibu have lots of plans for the future. They have no money to implement any of their projects but somehow, with persistence, enthusiasm and clarity of purpose, they manage to find ways to support each other. They show what commitment and taking on challenges can achieve. They are an inspiration to us all. The sewing projecgt continues and fabric donations are still welcome. The photos below are taken from the exhibition and sale and depict the organisers of and not participants in the sewing project.

The black item is a traditional headdress. It looks like a tube and not very interesting lying on a table, but when put on, it's a beautiful traditional headdress. Underneath are quilted apron for cooking and quilted oven gloves and a lot of cushion covers.

This is a cushion - the flowers are quilted onto the main fabric.

These are traditional overcoats, for receiving guests formally.

I'm sorry for the title, it is late, and my brain in a daze. Since the toy appeal was such a success, and I've been getting increasingly annoyed that there are plenty of crafting for charity ideas and projects in the US (check out my current top of the blog reader's list www.craftivism.com), I'm still scratching my head as to how best to use the immense charitable generosity of knitters and other crafters.

Well, here's something for those feeling generous: I had a phone call from a small voluntary organisation who does lots of valuable projects for African refugees and asylum seekers living in Glasgow. They have just set up a new activity where they set up sewing classes for refugees who are dealing with mental health issues (considering what refugees go through before getting here and the impact of the wretched asylum system on them after they get here, this is quite a significant percentage of refugees). The sewing classes are all set up, including bales of enthusiasm and excitement. All they need is fabric.

So I'm looking for kind donations of fabric. Have you got old clothes lying about? The kind of stuff that even the charity shops would turn away? Do you have any fabric leftovers from your sewing that are gathering dust in your cupboard? You know you won't ever use them again. Just get them out, put them in a bag and leave a comment or contact me on fabric @ cartside.co.uk to arrange uplift.

Anything goes really and if you're a follower of this blog you will know how therapeutic making things is for people struggling with having been disempowered left right and centre. 

This post is oh so overdue.

Before Christmas, when the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees launched their annual toy appeal, Cartside ventured into collecting toys for the Campaign, partly spurred by he own experience of the lack of toys in the homes of the mums of pre 5 she then worked with. Asylum seeking parents simply don't have the disposable income to buy toys.

The response to my very simple appeal on this blog and amongst the circle of southside mums who had babies around about the same time as me was overwhelming. There were countless (I mean it) bags of toys, clothes, chocolates and baby essentials that poured into my house and my office.  My forward thinking wasn't great as the appeal coincided partially with our office move so it all got a bit frantic towards the end.

I'm pleased to let you know that all new stuff plus some high quality expensive toys went for distribution to the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, used toys/clothes went to the following groups: YMCA Glasgow in Petershill Drive (where newly arrived asylum seekers are housed as well as families whose claim is being assessed), the Kingsway Court Mums and Toddlers Group for refugee/asylum seeking mums which I ran at the time (clothes) and the Scottish Refugee Council (toys). I know all these organisations well and can assure donors that every single of their donations went to a very good home in Glasgow.

Big cheers to Jock Morris from the GCtWR for picking up twice with very short notice.

The biggest cheers though to all the donors who showed such incredible generosity!!! I never thought that I would get that kind of response with so little effort (effectively I wrote one blogpost and one email) and it warmed my heart to see how many people care. If you want to be added to the GCtWR mailing list, you can contact them on glacamref at hotmail.com.

The mums and toddlers groups that we ran for asylum seeking and refugee parents (with local residents welcome to join in) were in essence a pilot. The difficulty that these parents experience is that being dispersed involuntarily to Glasgow, they have no family or friends networks. There is nobody they can fall back on if they need a babysitter. Many parents, particularly the mums, don't attend English classes because they have children, and creche places are rare. Some suffer post traumatic stress disorders or other mental health issues caused by torture, having lost close relatives, having experienced war. There may also be physical health issues, but how do you get counselling or medical care if you have children that you have to bring along? Even for their legal representation, they often have to take the children to interviews where they have to explain their reasons for fleeing their country in the presence of young children.

What these parents need is a break. Hence we came up with the idea of parental support groups, a group which is informal and offers a break, while the children can have some fun in the creche, getting a rare opportunity to engage in social, active and creative play.

We experimented with different activities for the parents and regularly consulted them as to what they are interested in. The problem with consulting them was that everyone had a different idea - too many to all be implemented. Sometimes we organised taster sessions of one activity or another, other times we organised courses. A six week hand and foot massage course was very popular, as were health and beauty treatments and arts and crafts classes. Exercise classes, though called for repeatedly, didn't work so well, mainly because of the venue which was not conducive to exercise classes, and also partly due to the type of exercise (Yoga - picked because of the venue limitations) because mums with small children tend to struggle to be on time (which the yoga teacher didn't appreciate).

We also had a few parties, as well as healthy eating classes (that was bringing coal to newcastle, refugee mums have a better diet than the average Glaswegian) and parenting workshops (those were very successful thanks to being run at a time when the group was well established and there was great trust and openness).

I've been busy trying to get other organisations to continue running these groups, and have applied for small grants to enable them to do so. It's looking rather good, so I'm very pleased although I'll miss being at these group meetings loads. It was possibly my favourite piece of work. Initially, it was hard work getting it off to a good start, with many parents being suspicious and not knowing what this was about or what we were about. Once we got a critical number of mums together, the groups ran themselves. Word of mouth is the secret to it, nevermind the countless posters I designed and put up. In one group alone, more than 50 different mums attended sessions over the course of a year and a half - plus their children of course. We shared joy at being granted indefinite leave to remain, and worry and anguish when yet another mum and her kids got detained or deported, or went into hiding for fear of being deported.

We also learned that multilingual support workers have an important role in engaging parents. Without them, we'd not have had the success we had. The participants mirrored the languages of the support workers. We mainly had participants from Somalia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and various Arabic countries. There were some exceptions, but the pattern was rather clear that language and religion play a role and it makes a world of difference to have multilingual workers, better even, workers who are refugees themselves.

Our last session, or should I say, my last session because I hope it won't be the last for the group, involved making cards. Now, none of those who came along was going to celebrate Christmas, so I was rather curious what the cards would look like. Our arts and crafts tutor wasn't able to make the session so had instructed me in the art of making cards and I brought two templates along (well three, but only used two). Some mums were keen to follow the templates, other were keener to just dive into decorating the cards wildly without the restrictions of a set design. We overran yet again.

One of the most successful activities with children that we ran involves using the medium of puppets. We've used this at primary schools, whenever a school approached us about a specific topic that the children had identified and wanted to explore. Working with a puppeteer, the children were given an opportunity to explore the topic in six afternoon sessions, creating a storyboard, a puppet theatre, a background/props, and the actual puppets. We used this with various primary schools. At one school, a classmate of the class we worked with had been detained in a dawn raid and later deported back to his home country. Other children in the class had experienced detention as well, but were subsequently given leave to remain. Regardless of whether the pupils were refugees and personally affected by the possibility of being detained or whether the pupils were worried about their friends - the children were united in being appalled by the practice. Their words and drawings were very powerful and we explored their feelings when losing a friend without being able to even say goodbye, but also what they could do if faced with this situation.

The other secondary school explored the topic of diversity through a puppet show they made themselves. You can view the actual show on my youtube channel (left column) under the title "A birthday pet". This group was more challenging, mainly because they didn't really understand what diversity meant and needed help with scripting the show. Regardless of these difficulties, the activity worked wonders for a very challenging group of pupils, who all at some point or another found great satisfaction in the creative process of drawing theatres and puppets. There were children who were not experienced in drawing, others from chaotic backgrounds, many who experienced and engaged in violence. The sessions were hard going, but there were amazing glimpses of the potential of these children, and their true character often shone through their tough shell.

 

 

If you like these and want to see more pictures, have a look at my flickr account (widget top right).

The powers to be have decided that my current work is no longer to continue. We are in the process of exiting and trying to pass pieces of work on to other agencies, of making learning from our work available, archiving, and also to a large extent - shredding. Every working day I look at my files, books, our website, the photos which document the past and present. I cannot get myself to shred yet.

Some of the archiving I intend to do on this blog. It will only be snapshots because lots of the work is if not confidential, at least not public property. At the end of the day, I work with people and won't publish anything here that would need the consent. Sometimes though snapshots may tell more than the whole story, or may feed a readers imagination.

As of January 2009, my work will focus on ending child poverty. That is a good cause, and I'm all behind it. My heart though is with the people who I've come to meet in the past 15 years, first through part time work as a student in a lawyers' office, then through my voluntary work with Amnesty International, and finally in two jobs taking me through a wonderful journey for the last 7 years. The people I'm talking about are asylum seekers and refugees, and I hate to use the label because every person I met was different and simply a person in their own right. I've learned a lot on this journey and it is very hard to let go and focus ahead. Of course I won't entirely let go, and my attempt to capture some snapshots on this platform will make sure I won't.

The remaining weeks will see me write funding applications, transfer knowledge into reports and onto memory sticks, attend meetings, compile information and ... shred.

I still can't get myself to shred.

The mums and toddlers group at Kingsway Court Health and Wellbeing Centre has been knitting for three weeks now. Maggie, the volunteer knitting tutor, got everyone onto two needles. We received a beautiful collection of donated yarns. Everyone got right into knitting and some mums excelled and have already competed beautiful projects. It's a shame we have to take a break right now, with everyone so keen to keep it going. For now, we need to find funding to do so and pick up the threads in January, but thankfully there are some options available to small community groups and it should only be a matter of time until the knitting can continue. If any proof is needed that the group had fun, how about this: we forgot the time three weeks running and overran. Here's a small photographic journey to Scotstoun and back, enjoy:


wool wool wool


helping out

I've blogged many a time about how refugee children in Glasgow really don't get the best start in life. For all their parents try, money is more than short, housing is anything but encouraging safe outdoor play, and access to eductional nusery provision (which is a statutory right for 3 and 4 year olds) is often not available to asylum seeking children in Glasgow. One thing is for sure, toys are in very short supply.

As every year, the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees launches a toy appeal for the festive season. So if you have toys that are in very good condition or new (the campaign prefers new toys because refugee kids deserve new toys like all of us and shouldn't only be given the throw away things from our kids. However, as someone who believes that there are enough plastic toys making the rounds already and we can do with a bit more reusing instead of endless consuming, I'm very happy to call for slightly used toys as well, if they are in nearly new condition), or a donation to the toy fund, please do get in touch. It will be so much appreciated in a family who lives nearer to you than you may think.

What kind of toys? 
Well, it's simple really: educational and fun toys for babies and toddlers, baby essential packs (wipes, nappies, cream, bath toys ...), items for older children, like trendy clothes, games, toys, sports stuff, gift tokens for books/music shops. Last year there was a shortage of gifts for teenagers. Basically, the kind of stuff you would give your own kids.

How and when?
Last gifts to be received by 11th December. I'm happy to pass on toys so just contact me and I'll arrange pick up / drop off. Just email me on toyappeal at cartside dot co dot uk (substituting "at" with @ and "dot" with .). If you can't figure out the email address, leave a comment with your contact details.
If you prefer to contact the campaign directly, you can do so on glascamref at hotmail.com.

Why not tell your neighbours, friends, family and colleagues and collect toys and goodies from them to pass on, to make this December really special for refugee kids in Glasgow.

While I'm still pondering how those with charitable intentions can use their knitting or other creative skills to help others, today I'd like to tell a wee story of a group of knitting mums.

Part of my work involves organising parental support groups (we call them mums and toddlers groups), aimed at asylum seeking and refugee mums of children under five, but open to anyone interested who has preschoolers. The reason for setting up these groups is that asylum seeking parents face very specific challenges. They are often isolated and take care of the children, nevermind the impact on their physical and mental health that the circumstances that led to them fleeing their countries has. In Glasgow, they are housed in high rise flats in areas which are not safe. The children hardly leave the flat, neither does their mum. Dad (if around) may attend college. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work and get only 70% of income support, so money is short. Children lack outdoor play, social play with peers, activities which may cost money. They are also often unable to attend nursery education (which is a statutory provision for 3 and 4 year olds but due to different access procedures for asylum seeking children and other barriers, there are children who never attend nursery education before they start school - this of course disadvantages them especially because they start school with very little English skills). The parental support groups are there to get mums together, out of their flats, children together, give both some space to play and do something positive that recharges batteries, gives ideas, helps make contacts with other mums, helps with everyday problems and generally makes everyone a bit happier.

These groups are extremely enjoyable. There is a creche, a weekly activity for parents, a drop in baby clinic where health visitors answer questions and weigh babies. We organise, encourage those who are reluctant at first to come along. We signpost if parents come to us with problems that cause them headaches - in almost all cases, these problems can be solved easily but for someone who doesn't speak much English and doesn't know their way around, they can be very daunting indeed. Of course there's great satisfaction in being able to help with practical issues. Over time, the group also helps themselves. New friendships have been formed, parents helping each other out when they struggle, informal babysitting, welcoming newcomers by those who've been there a while. Mums who were shadows of themselves, crippled by fear and depression, have laughed and are reconnected with who they really are.

The activities we organise (in consultation with the mums who attend) range from crafts to stress relieving massage, beauty treatments, exercise, tips on parenting and ideas on how to play with children to cooking and having parties. I've learned as much as anyone else, there's a true spirit of sharing.

Most recently, we started knitting "classes". Well, it's not really a class. We do have a tutor, a volunteer even, who is a passionate knitter, retired, formerly community educator and local resident. I'm there to demonstrate a few stitches too, as is my colleague. When we started, about half of the group had no idea of knitting. After 90 minutes, everyone had knitted a square. Those who already knew how to knit, had become what is fancily termed "peer educators": out went the supportive: you're doing great, keep it going, doesn't matter if you lose every 3rd stitch, in came the: gimme that, lets unravel it and start again. Mind you, not in English, but in Somali, but the nonverbal communication was pretty international. And sure enough, one mum taught the two sitting next to them, and me a few things about knitting. We had fun, real fun. The joy of making something with your two hands and a couple of simple needles and simple yarn, something that may become a scarf or a baby hat or a cardigan. Something to be pround of. Something to show around. Something to sparkle in a very grey flat on the 16th floor. We'll be knitting for a few weeks to come because everyone, whether a longstanding knitter or a first timer, got into the spirit of it.

One week, I visited one of the mums. In her bare livingroom, on the shelf above her simple gas heater which served as the mantlepiece, in the centre of  this little shelf beside her family photos, was a decopatched vase which she had made in one of our meetings.

This week has been a rollercoaster ride. The interview went awfully. Yet I got the slot in job. I don't know who didn't get it and don't want to know for now - I feel too bad about it because I don't wish any of my colleagues to not get the job. I'm relieved though, I'm selfish that way. And at the same time I'm sad that while I have a job, my work will be gone. Instead of working with asylum seekers and refugees, I will now work to end child poverty, working with the poorest 10% of children who are in severe and persistent poverty. A worthy cause, yes, but I'm passionate about refugee issues and will have to limit my work on those to my voluntary activities after 5pm.

Speaking of which, I'd like to invite all readers who are able to make it to Glasgow School of Art (Mackintosh Lecture Theatre, 167 Renfrew Street) tonight at 7pm to join our Writers read for Amnesty evening. The evening features the creme de la creme of Scotland based writers, namely Anne Donovan, Ghazi Hussein, Tom Leonard, Diana Hendry, Hamish Whyte and Bernard MacLaverty who are all kindly reading for the good cause only (and a glass of wine maybe). You'll also have a chance to see Camcorder Guerilla's most recent short film "Take Action" on the destitution of asylum seekers in Glasgow.
All of this and a glass of wine for £4/£3 with all proceeds going to Amnesty's work. Oh, there'll be a raffle as well.
If your really can't make it tonight, how about a donation? Just donate at www.amnesty.org.uk.
I'm quite proud of this event, mainly because of the brilliant writers who offered to donate their time and talents, some of my favourite writers are amongst the line up (I won't say who of course). But also because this is the first major activity I've been involved in since B-day (baby born day).

The big challenge will be thus: Given I still feed Cubling to sleep every single night, and I won't be in for her bedtime, will there be mayhem at the Cartside home? This is only the third or fourth time in 18 months that I've not brought her to bed myself. Each time she ended up awake until she collapsed of exhaustion hours after her bedtime. If ever anyone would have suggested that my social life would be suspended for months/years until after 8pm, I would probably have reconsidered having a baby. Now that it's happened, I honestly don't mind. As I won't mind if she'll greet me at the door on my return tonight with her infectious "hi mummy!" In fact, I would quite like that.