Charity Awards 2010: Winner: Al-Hasaniya
The Al Hasaniya Centre for Moroccan Women seeks to serve the health, welfare, educational and cultural needs of Arabic-speaking women and their families resident in London and the UK.
The centre was originally founded in 1985 in order to help Moroccan women and their families access NHS health services, which remained out of their reach due to a lack of knowledge, language difficulties and cultural barriers. The centre's work subsequently played a significant role in shaping health services for the Arabic-speaking population of West London.
Since then the Al Hasaniya centre has grown to serve all Arabic-speaking women and their families, developing a programme designed to meet the myriad everyday needs of the women who come through its doors.
Today Al Hasaniya seeks to improve the overall physical and mental well being of its women users by tackling the root causes of poverty, disadvantage and inequality experienced by the Arabic-speaking migrant, refugee and asylum-seeker communities. The centre provides the women with a safe arena in which to develop self-expression and self-empowerment, fostering a mutual support between the women which helps reduce the debilitating feelings of isolation. The centre's work is strongly user-led in its approach to helping the women, building the individual confidence and ability of each woman whilst at the same time strengthening the group dynamic.
Ultimately Al Hasaniya's work seeks to encourage and enable the women to integrate and participate fully in their communities outside the centre. With the long term objective of helping to prevent current problems from perpetuating themselves in future generations.
al-hasaniya.org.uk