Farzana Patel followed up her calligraphy sessions with young people at the Islamic School with two sessions with the Different Moons Women's Group at Haslingden Community Link. The final session was last week, and now all of the Different Moons workshops are over, with the exception of 4 additional sessions being held with Year 6 at St Mary's C of E School in Rawtenstall.
All of the Women's Sessions have been very popular, and we're now considering a new initiative as part of the Different Moons project - looking for a 'pop-up' base in Haslingden which can be used by groups like these to hold their own meetings and workshop and other training. One of the common complaints from South Asian women in Haslingden is the lack of available spaces where they can easily meet, talk, and learn. There's Community Link, of course, which is very popular, and the local library, but neither are quite right for small informal sessions, and so most of this type of meeting are currently held in the ladies' front rooms. For a variety of reasons this often inconvenient and restrictive, so we are looking at a pilot project for a new communal space, focusing on the needs of the South Asian women, but not excluding the wider community or, possibly, male participants.
