The Voice of Faith Working for Our Community in Burnley

Incorporating the Bridge Project

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Building Bridges Women's Group

A group of women from Muslim and Christian backgrounds meet each Wednesday morning, at 10 am., in the Women's Centre on
Colne Road. We have a cup of coffee, a chat  and share each other's culture, language and ideas. It's a great confidence builder and a fun way to improve English or learn a little Urdu or Bengali.
For more information contact Bea Foster on bea_foster@hotmail.com

Wednesday Women's Group
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EMPOWERING WOMEN PROJECT
 
 
Building Bridges in Burnley was awarded £18,200 from the Lloyds TSB Foundation for a one year project, which aimed to empower women through volunteering. The project utilised the local knowledge of Burnley Churches and Mosques to draw in women from different backgrouds who wouldn't normally consider volunteering. The project worked with these to women to provide them with confidence and self-esteem and encourage them to attend formal and informal training to improve their skills
 
The women who took part in the project benefited in the following ways:

 

- Increased self-confidence, self-esteem and raise their aspirations

- Opportunity to broaden their social circles and make new friends

- Appreciate community cohesion and value of cultural diversity

- Improve their CVs and employability by being able to access training, learn new transferable skills, gain work experience and improved understanding of organisational behaviour and work ethic

- Improved chance of gaining entrance to a University

- An opportunity to achieve self-actualisation by giving back to the community and improving society

- Improved ability to support their families and community
 

We recruited a number of volunteers for the Empowering Women Project (23) who took part in various different Training and Education programmes. Some of the volunteers underwent training at the Council for Voluntary Services, others enrolled on Literacy and Numeracy courses to help them develop themselves. With the support of the project, two volunteers enrolled on NVQ’ s in Health and Social care and Business Retail. The remaining volunteers took part in attending, organising and planning community cohesion and interfaith events which have been listed below:

The Spirit of Ramadan

This Interfaith event was organised by the Project co-ordinater and volunteers for the project. The aim of the event was to bring together people of different faiths within the Borough to provide a better understanding of the holy month and to build relations between people of different backgrounds and faiths. Five volunteers took part in organising the event which allowed them to gain experience of leadership skills, teamwork and event planning.

Interfaith Trip to Synagogue

The Empowering Women’s Project worked in collaboration with the Share Faith, Share food ladies group and organised a day trip to a synagogue as part of the group’s ongoing discussions and learning about different faiths. A total of 25 women attended the excursion.

Day trip for Eastern European Community

We worked alongside the Bridge Youth Project in organising a fun day out for the eastern European residents of Burnley, The trip was organising in order to encourage more integration and understanding between people of different ethnic origins, and to encourage and support women from such communities to access training opportunities and services through familiarising themselves with the Project.

Drug and Alcohol Misuse Awareness Session
 
The project teamed up with the Youth Action Partnership to deliver a session about the awareness of drug and alcohol abuse.  Many of our volunteers highlighted the need for more to be done to tackle these issues within Burnley and the women who attended and took part said that it was very beneficial for them and that they now knew the signs and symptoms of drug and alcohol abuse and should they ever be faced with having to deal with such problems then they were confident enough to find out where to get help and support.
 

 

One of the biggest challenges in meeting the aims of the project was the lack of funds for project costs and resources. There are many organisations offering services in terms of education and training within the Borough and in order for the project to reach out to more volunteers, there was precedent for a larger budget for events and project activities. However, cuts to our Core funds from the local authority severely affected our ability to deliver work. We attempted to overcome this by using our own staff skill base in delivering creative workshops and by working with external organisations to identify individual needs and supporting them thorough partnership and link working.

Burnley has one of the highest levels of deprivation in terms of economical growth and sustainability. Although there is a lot of work going on to lift the Borough into progression, it proved very difficult to encourage local residents to take part programmes that will allow them to increase their potential through training and education programmes.

Amongst the South East Asian community there are still many taboo issues involving the empowerment of women that need to be overcome and this was also a factor to consider when outreaching into these communities. We overcame this somewhat by outreaching through recognised institutes such as mosques and also through reputable services, so that people felt more able to access services