If you would like to keep up to date with our journey,
we love sharing so keep an eye on this page for all thing In Her Shoes.
International Women's Day Karaoke at Moseley Hive
Oh what a night and what a way to round off our International Women's Day Celebrations 2024!
We were delighted and amazed to hear so many fabulous voices in one room and to be with so many women performing and dancing the night away. The raffle was riotous and helped us to raise £200 to support In Her Shoes projects. Thanks to everyone who came along and we are looking forward to planning more creative events in the coming months.
We are delighted to announce we have received funding from Birmingham City Council Cultural Development Service to work with women and girls, to reimagine the songs we created as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival Journeys of Hope Project.
We are holding a series of women only workshops in Moseley Northfield and Balsall Heath April to June 2023. In Her Shoes musician Ann Jones will be accompanied by guest women artists, from different music genres and ethnicities, will share their musical culture through drumming, music and songs.
To celebrate and share the reimagined songs, we will hold a celebration workshop :
Thursday 22nd June 2023 10.30-12.30 at the Moseley Hive. This is a women only session, and children welcome. This event is taking place during Refugee Week 2023 and please stay for lunch 12.30-1.30pm
As part of Birmingham 2022 Festival, we received funding from Birmingham City Council to develop a Creative City Project, ‘Journeys of Hope’ .
Inspired by athletes travelling from Commonwealth countries to Birmingham, refugee women tell their story of how it feels to arrive in a cold country, the kind of welcome they have received in Birmingham and some of the places they love in their engaging songs. The words of these women will make you laugh and cry, as you hear of the joy, the sorrow, and the strength that sustains them in their new home of Birmingham.
In Spring 2020, we received funding from BCC’s SVPRS scheme, Syrian Vulnerable Person’s Resettlement scheme, to work with a group of Syrian women and girls, newly arrived in Birmingham over the past five years. We met some of the women on our “What community means to me“project, and were keen to develop our relationship.
Our Syrian Song and Conversation Cafe project was participant centred and led, so women shared their Syrian culture with us, taught us some Dabke dance moves and shared their wonderful food. The women shared their hopes and dreams for the future.
During the pandemic, we adapted and met on zoom, and this helped all of us to stay connected and share the challenges we were facing We delivered doorstep packs of craft materials and lyric packs of children’s songs, to help with home schooling and engage new participants. BMAG kindly partnered with us on the initiative.
We wrote songs which explored the impact of lockdown, missing family members, and what it means to be a woman. The group were keen to write in English, and develop their language skills. BMAG has included one of the songs “Planted a lot of flowers”, in their “Life under Lockdown” project.
We plan to continue working with the women beyond this project, and have been invited to perform the songs at BMAG when they reopen. We look forward to some of the women volunteering with us, and seeing the group realise their new ambitions, as they settle into life in Birmingham.
Many thanks are due to our wonderful translator Christina Williams and also to our partner organisations who helped the project succeed:
Julie Barton Navigator Project, Rosie Barker at BMAG, Azra Rasool at Refugee Alliance
Iram Choudry and the resettlement team at BCC.Thanks also to Elona photographer and Rihab Azar, oud player for their contributions.
We were so thrilled to see this lovely blog by Rachel Gillies about our work together just before the lockdown on our project 'What Community Means To Me'
"When we lift one another up and focus on glimmers of hope we create communities of care and support.
More than once during lockdown I’ve thought about, and drawn on, the strength of these remarkable women."
Thank you so much Rachel, read the full blog here
A wonderful blog from Rachel Gillies: 6th November 2020
We are delighted to announce that we have received a National Lottery Community Fund grant to run a Community Arts Project for women, What Community Means to Me. We will be offering a mix of one-off workshops and series of participatory song writing workshops from January to March 2020 in Birmingham. We will create new songs to be shared on-line and in workshops. You don’t need any previous musical experience to take part – just come along to meet new women and talk and sing together.
Our partners include:
Moseley Community Hub at The School of Art
Refugee Action in the West Midlands
South Birmingham Women’s Enterprise Hub
Working with our community partners will enable us to offer workshops to women who are disadvantaged: women experiencing domestic violence and abuse; women who are asylum seekers or refugees; women with mental health issues; women who feel lonely and socially isolated; and mothers in deprived communities in Birmingham.
The project will culminate in a sharing event in Birmingham City Centre to celebrate International Women’s Day in March 2020, showcasing the voices of disadvantaged or isolated women and girls from the city. At this event, participants from the workshops will share their lyrics and songs with each other and with members of the public.
Please get in touch with us if you would like to support the
project or introduce us to women who would like to be.
Contact Lou Atkin lou.atkin@inhershoes.org.uk or through our website
6th November 2020
We were so thrilled to see this lovely blog by Rachel Gillies about our work together just before the lockdown on our project 'What Community Means To Me'
"When we lift one another up and focus on glimmers of hope we create communities of care and support.
More than once during lockdown I’ve thought about, and drawn on, the strength of these remarkable women."
Thank you so much Rachel, read the full blog here
In Her Shoes are collecting resources to share with Syrian women and children, we have a small amount of money for basics but would love to suppplement to make the packs extra special. Can you help us by donating any of the following?
Art materials - pens, colouring pencils and books, paper.
Games, small toys and puzzles for children (not electronic please).
Donations can be dropped for 'In Her Shoes' c/o Moseley Exchange (behind the main Moseley Post Office) by 21 August.
Please share and spread the word
Many thanks
In Her Shoes.
