Journeys to health

Bedford Bangladeshi Women’s Association

My name is Shamela Vice chair of (BBWA). I made the presentation on the 05/09/08 with a very valued volunteer member – Mrs Noorjahan Begum.

Winning the two grand was a great joy for BBWA, especially as it was Ramadhan at the time when we did our pitch to the panel of dragons. Believe me the count to the final day was hectic, however was a huge relief when our pitch was over, so was part of my mental stress.

However the phone call to say we had won the prize money, I can’t put to words how excited and pleased I was ‘’ finally we had money’’ to start planning and developing more services to deliver to our service users.

We were invited to the AGM of Bedfordshire and Luton mental health and social care partnership trust (BLPT) and were honoured to receive the award.

However since then we have been extremely busy making plans to further develop the aims of the group.

On the 18th of October we organised an Eid party. It was held at a local venue for women to come and celebrate the end of Ramadhan, with their friends and families. We arranged activities such as bouncy castle, colouring competitions, facials, massage and a raffle for all to participate and enjoy. Not forgetting we had a huge variety of Asian food ordered for the day, as well as prepared by our volunteers and members. Our volunteers and members took huge responsibility and ownership in the running of the event. The day was a huge success with a turn out of over 200 people. We had a journalist from Bangla TV (digital channel 786) come to do some recording to show the event to the wider community on their International community news.

One of the main areas we wanted to focus on with this money was in providing training to our volunteers especially First Aid, Health and Safety etc. We have already had meetings with Bedford College and have received quotes from them. We are looking into providing the training in dual language (English/Bengali) and are considering costing and value for money. I will let you know more of this once we know more.

In the meantime BBWA are working alongside members of the Bangladeshi community, voluntary and statutory bodies to launch the formation of Bedford Bangladeshi Community Council on the 30th of November 2008. We will be helping to organise the event. Our volunteers will be playing a huge part in distributing leaflets, preparing refreshments, helping to set up, transport and direct people to the venue.

We will be holding a stall and intend to provide a huge amount of information on BBWA what its all about, what progress the organisation has made to date and what its aims are for the future. We will also be producing a newsletter and a leaflet to recruit more volunteers to the group to further expand and strengthen the key aims of the project.

I look forward to giving you feedback on this event very soon, and progress on the training for our volunteers.

Shamela Khatun

1 Comment so far

  1. by Luton Boy

    On June 20, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    I came across your article and understand you are promoting your community in Luton and Bedford. Have you considered setting up an online community for your group to help spread your message. This can be done for free on sites like ning.com.


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