East African Women's Actions
Taking side of vulnerable women in the community
OUR PROGRAMMES
Our main activities are to provide support services to vulnerable women, children and young people from East Africa living in Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council in West Midlands. The support we provide aims at supporting independence/empowerment and sustained integration and enable improved quality of life, via a structured and outcome focus support package.
The trust should provide support service for Refugees and immigrants living in Sandwell area of West Midlands, to enable them to develop or maintain their skills to live independently in society.
The main activities include:
- To provide support services to vulnerable individuals. The support we provide aim at supporting independence/empowerment and sustained integration and enable improved quality of life through a structured and outcome focus support package.
- To Provide high quality short-term support services to
empower women to access mainstream social and economic activity;
support clients to move on to more independent, stable, suitable accommodation; and enable clients to access local services.
There are no restrictions on who can benefit from the activities apart from the fact that our charity is more focused on helping women who originate from East African countries and now are living in West Midlands. But any other woman who needs our support is welcome. Beneficiaries are identified and selected following a thorough need assessment. Many people in need of our services are ordinary people from East African countries (Somali, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti, Uganda, etc) and mainly women and children. Some of them are self-referrals, others are those referred to us by friends or formers service users and most importantly new comers who are new to UK environment and who are referred by the social network of the local neighbourhood and community organisations.
No fees are charged for any of the activities our organisation provides. As a charitable organisation, we provide benevolent service to the community members who are destitute, vulnerable and mainly on low income who cannot afford to pay for the service they really need.
OUR PROGRAMMES IN DETAILS
1. Generic Support
Under the generic support programme, the charity provides practical support to refugees and immigrants in need. The type of support we provide under Generic support includes: help to deal with housing matters, one to one support, advice, information and guidance, advocacy, help with benefit claims, assistance with completion of forms and other paperwork, referral for legal advice, help in gaining access to other services, assistance in accessing health or other treatment service if needed, assistance in setting up support with other clients in similar position, life coaching, counselling, and emotional support, advice on employment issues, information on hardship grants, information on training and college, housing accommodation advice, etc. Mutual support between services users will be encouraged.
The organisation makes use (recruit and select) of a team of fulltime/part time front line volunteers (CRB checked) to provide support services including advice, advocacy, life coaching, counseling, etc. Their qualifications and skill requirement are at the level of: NVQ 3 or 4 or Health & Social Care (or other appropriate) degree with counseling skills, advocacy skills, psychology background skills and/or social work; record keeping, information sharing, multi-agency working skills, conducting assessments, drawing up support plans, researching and previous support provision experience comparable to a defined personal specification.
2. Charitable Activities
The organisation's broad aim is to support refugees/asylum seekers and immigrants living in Sandwell. Any of the activities falling under the following areas and having charitable purposes will be welcome by the trustees: the advancement of education, the relief of poverty,the preservation and protection of good health, the provision of facilities for recreation and other leisure time occupation with the object of improving the conditions of life of those refugees and asylum seekers.
The Activities We Carry Out (2021/2022):
We have supported 21 BME older women who live in Sandwell with mental health (dementia) get the practical help they need and can stay safe, healthy, connected, and contributing after a long period of socially isolating during the Covid-19 lockdown.
EAWA has kept vital services running, providing a support helpline, advice, advocacy, opportunities, and practical help. As many of the elderly beneficiaries of our group’s support do not have English as their first language, they were unable to do much on their own and this was causing them to become further marginalized from their Peers.
3. Walk-in/One Stop Services
A. Education and Awareness (To increase education, female economic empowerment).
The organisation provides free advice and information to women refugees and immigrants mainly from Africa through our One Stop Services. Women can discuss any problems they may have as an asylum seeker or refugee including the asylum process and support and entitlement.
B. Women Sport
One of the charity objects as it appears in the constitution is to help East African Women advance in life and relieve their needs through:
- (a): The provision of recreational and leisure time activities provided in the interest of social welfare, designed to improve their conditions of life; and
- (b): The provision of support and activities which develop their skills, capacities and
capabilities to enable them to participate in society as full and responsible individuals.
The type of recreation and other leisure time occupation that are provided include helping those women who, by virtue of their cultural background and traditional restrictions to participate and socialise with other women through leisure activities. There are a number of activities that try to break the barriers that these women are facing in participation in leisure activities. These facilities are: swimming, gym, badminton, squash, table tennis, sauna, spa, sport, just fun, educational trips, etc.
EXCEPTIONS
1. East African Women’s Action will not provide legal advice or legal representation. We can advise on entitlements and the meaning of laws. If we cannot help, we will provide a list of qualified legal representatives.
2. Although we can give advice, we cannot change decisions made by the Home Office or UK Border Agency (UKBA) about someone's case.
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