Almost 200 people visited the first AkiDwA Health Fair in Dublin last Friday, when AkiDwA joined forces with Cairde and a host of health-focused organisations in St Agatha’s Hall, Dublin 1. People came along from many parts of Dublin as well as from Balbriggan and Offaly, drawn by the free treatments, a pilates class and healthy snacks offered by AkiDwA members.Visitors were able to get free toothbrushes for adults and children, as well as advice on looking after your teeth from the Dental Health Foundation, while the Health Reach Team were kept busy testing cholesterol levels.
Education can help to promote good mental health
There was advice on giving up smoking, careers, sports and contraception as well as information from HIV Ireland and The Saol Project on living with conditions such as Hepatitis C.
The Fair offered lots of information and advice from local and national organisations on the many ways that we can make choices to improve our mental and physical health. The Talbot Centre was there to offer advice on drug and alcohol services for young people, while Shine and the Recovery College gave visitors some valuable tips on how to look after your mental health.
To help promote relaxation there was Indian head massage, henna tattoos and manicures by AkiDwA’s Young Migrant Women Group.
Charities such as the Irish Heart Foundation, Diabetes Ireland and The Marie Keating Foundation were there providing dietary advice and free health checks.
Local Public Health Nurses from Summerhill Primary Health Centre gave nutritional tips, while Dublin City Sports & Well being Patnership provided our Pilates class.Most visitors availed of free blood pressure and cholesterol tests while others were drawn by manicures, massage and other relaxing treatments.
Nails
Members of Balbriggan Women’s Development Group came along
AkiDwA as an organisation emerged from regular meetings held amongst fellow migrant women, from 1999 to 2001, initiated by Salome Mbugua, a Kenyan migrant woman who had arrived in Ireland in 1994. The first meeting was held in city centre Dublin, in Temple Bar, in 1999. In 2001, through the support of the Catherine McAuley Centre, Salome mobilised a group of African women to come together to SHARE their experiences of living in Ireland. What emerged from this meeting were feelings of exclusion, isolation, racial abuse and discrimination, issues related to gender based violence were also raised. The group went on to meet regularly and were supported and offered facilitation from outside. AkiDwA sought and obtained funding from the Combat Poverty Agency in 2002 to carry out a pilot needs assessment with African women living in Ireland. The survey elicited over two hundred female participants from seventeen counties.
Formal structures were put into place when AkiDwa was registered as a company with guarantee but without capital SHARE in 2003. However, limited funding meant that most work continued to be carried out on a voluntary basis. With a view towards enhancing the integration of migrant women and indigenous women, training modules were developed including programmes on capacity building, cultural diversity, racism and its effects on society. In addition, ‘Train the trainers modules were also developed’.
Over the years, the organisation has gained recognition as a leading NGO in Ireland, reviewing key legislation, policy and practice as well as proposing reforms specifically to do with the issues faced by migrant women. AkiDwA consulted with migrant women and other key stakeholders, identifying gender and racially discriminatory practices, to develop evidence based and representative solutions for migrant women in the key identified areas of gender-based violence, gender discrimination.
AkiDwA employs the following key strategies to achieve its objectives: networking, policy work and individual and organisational capacity building/development. AkiDwA’s networking strategy is aimed at individual and organisational levels. Policy work is developed from migrant women, identifying their needs in the areas of gender discrimination, gender-based violence and employment. AkiDwA develops legislative, policy and practice reforms to address these priority issues with government and sectoral stakeholders, as well as capacity-building programmes to deliver the on the ground practical support that women require. AkiDwA has developed the capacity of hundreds of migrant women and their communities living in Ireland over the course of its lifetime. Their capacity building was supported through our network, resource centre, outreach and training programmes aimed at promoting participation in their local communities, in civic and political structures and in sectoral and government consultations and decision making processes. Training programmes delivered over the years including targeted capacity building in multiple regions, sexual health workshops, access to education and employment, integration, leadership and political/civic participation sessions.
Unit 2 Killarney Court, Buckingham Street, Dublin 1, Ireland
info@akidwa.ie
+353 (0)1 8349851
Registered Charity Number 20063641; CHY 17227
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