Communication is Key - Sponsored Editorial

SPONSORED EDITORIAL

We’re ‘Moments of Freedom’, a group of Syrian women who have resettled to live in Clydebank.

We get together as women to make connections, share our skills and be ourselves.

We also work to help New Scots families feel meaningfully included in the community.

This means building community connections, but Covid-19 hasn’t made this easy.

“It’s been a tough year, but we feel still meeting through lockdown - with home schooling and children at home - has been a huge achievement for our group.”

Things at a community level were changing so quickly, it was difficult to keep up.

We worried this would impact on our integration, but we made new connections with local community initiatives by going along to the Clydesider Community Response Network.

It’s helped us feel we are still moving forward by making new links.

For us, overcoming these obstacles and building our resilience is part of everyday life – it’s who we are!

Now we’re creating Cultural Sharing sessions for communities and groups in Clydebank and beyond.

We want to create spaces for people to come together for welcoming conversations.

These sessions are about sharing what it means to be New Scots and Muslim women while learning from others about their experiences.

Communication is key to understanding each other and makes coming together so much easier.

“There are so many ways for us to challenge – we do it with co-operation and empathy every step of the way.”

Before the online sessions launch, we want to hear from people who might want to take part.

It will be helpful to know what formats are most accessible, and what everyone is most interested to learn about.

What would you like to know about our cultural experiences?

What do you want to share about your local area?

You can help by filling in our  survey at: www.otbds.org/cultural-understanding-sessions

Learn more at our new website www.momentsoffreedom.org. We can’t wait to launch these sessions to share our learning and build more local connections!