Relaunch of Sin fronteras: Empowering young women from Latin America
We are thrilled to announce the return of Sin Fronteras! Launched in June 2015, Sin Fronteras (No Limits) focuses on empowering young Latin American women and girls. Sin Fronteras provides them with a safe space to develop their full potential and lead on actions for social change through the use of arts. During the first two and a half years of the project, LAWRS offered different workshops and activities to more than 100 Latin American young women and girls. Through art, dance and music the young women and girls were able to identify themselves as agents that can generate a social change in our communities.
“We want to set an example, leave a footprint and speak up for Latin American people and for people from all over the world whose voices are silenced or to whom language is a barrier,” said the manifest written by members of the group.
They advocated for the recognition of young migrant women’s rights by calling for a recognition of rights through photography exhibitions, by demonstrating against detention at Yarl’s Wood, and by joining the campaign Against Border for Children (ABC). Here is Sin Fronteras standing up for the the right to education free from racism and state surveillance.
LAWRS is thrilled to relaunch Sin Fronteras in November 2018. We will run a 3-month creative leadership programme with the support of the University of London, a 1-year programme to access free university lectures thanks to King’s College London, and a 3-year programme of arts, development and social change funded by Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Stay tuned to get more news about the awesome things this group of young leaders will be doing in the coming months.
Research: Minorities face Barriers to Islington Health
LAWRS Development and Outreach Coordinator Nahir de la Silva explains how LAWRS and the consortium Diverse Communities Health Voice found that Latin American women in Islington need better quality and gender-specific interpretation services to access healthcare.
Diverse Communities Health Voice, a consortium of ten Islington-based organisations*, has published its findings on research into how ethnic minorities are accessing the NHS: Community research 2016-2017 Black and minority ethnic groups accessing services in Islington.
As a consortium member, LAWRS interviewed 22 Latin American women* within our organisation, with research broken down into five different areas: pharmacies, wellbeing, accident & emergency, interpreting services, and referrals to specialist services.
We offer services including linguistically-specific counselling and yoga to help our community keep healthy.
Our interviews found that women experienced their first barrier when trying to make appointments. Reception staff did not provide appointments due to a lack of language understanding of our service users. We also heard of cases in which staff members would not offer interpreting services, despite the knowing that our users were not comfortable only using English.
This interview-based research has helped LAWRS identify different issues faced by our service users while trying to access the NHS. It is also helping us work with the community and local government to tackle these problems.
At LAWRS we wrote letters addressed to administrative staff from GP clinics asking for appointments and interpreters. We managed to get some much-needed appointments. LAWRS also provided information on services on offer in pharmacies, as well as free sports and wellbeing activities, dentist services, walk-in-centres, and complaint procedures.
Our research has also helped us conclude that language interpreting services need to be improved in Islington, as well as become more culturally and gender secure. We would also appreciate reception staff receiving appropriate Equality and Diversity training.
The final report makes the following recommendations
• To extend GP hours in order to make it possible for people working in different jobs to get appointments
• To promote information about the services available
• To translate this information into key languages to increase uptake
Read the full report here.[:es]
LAWRS Development and Outreach Coordinator Nahir de la Silva explains how the consortium Diverse Communities Health Voice also indicates that Latin American women in Islington need better quality and gender-specific interpretation services to access healthcare.
Diverse Communities Health Voice, a consortium of ten Islington-based organisations*, has published its findings on research into how ethnic minorities are accessing the NHS: Community research 2016-2017 Black and minority ethnic groups accessing services in Islington.
As a consortium member, LAWRS interviewed 22 Latin American women* within our organisation, with research broken down into five different areas: pharmacies, wellbeing, accident & emergency, interpreting services, and referrals to specialist services.
Our interviews found that women experienced their first barrier when trying to make appointments. Reception staff did not provide appointments due to a lack of language understanding of our service users. We also heard of cases in which staff members would not offer interpreting services, despite the knowing that our users were not comfortable only using English.
This interview-based research has helped LAWRS identify different issues faced by our service users while trying to access the NHS. It is also helping us work with the community and local government to tackle these problems.
At LAWRS we wrote letters addressed to administrative staff from GP clinics asking for appointments and interpreters. We managed to get some much-needed appointments. LAWRS also provided information on services on offer in pharmacies, as well as free sports and wellbeing activities, dentist services, walk-in-centres, and complaint procedures.
Our research has also helped us conclude that language interpreting services need to be improved in Islington, as well as become more culturally and gender secure. We would also appreciate reception staff receiving appropriate Equality and Diversity training.
The final report makes the following recommendations
• To extend GP hours in order to make it possible for people working in different jobs to get appointments
• To promote information about the services available
• To translate this information into key languages to increase uptake
Read the full report here.[:pt]LAWRS Development and Outreach Coordinator Nahir de la Silva explains how the consortium Diverse Communities Health Voice also indicates that Latin American women in Islington need better quality and gender-specific interpretation services to access healthcare.
Diverse Communities Health Voice, a consortium of ten Islington-based organisations*, has published its findings on research into how ethnic minorities are accessing the NHS: Community research 2016-2017 Black and minority ethnic groups accessing services in Islington.
As a consortium member, LAWRS interviewed 22 Latin American women* within our organisation, with research broken down into five different areas: pharmacies, wellbeing, accident & emergency, interpreting services, and referrals to specialist services.
Our interviews found that women experienced their first barrier when trying to make appointments. Reception staff did not provide appointments due to a lack of language understanding of our service users. We also heard of cases in which staff members would not offer interpreting services, despite the knowing that our users were not comfortable only using English.
This interview-based research has helped LAWRS identify different issues faced by our service users while trying to access the NHS. It is also helping us work with the community and local government to tackle these problems.
At LAWRS we wrote letters addressed to administrative staff from GP clinics asking for appointments and interpreters. We managed to get some much-needed appointments. LAWRS also provided information on services on offer in pharmacies, as well as free sports and wellbeing activities, dentist services, walk-in-centres, and complaint procedures.
Our research has also helped us conclude that language interpreting services need to be improved in Islington, as well as become more culturally and gender secure. We would also appreciate reception staff receiving appropriate Equality and Diversity training.
The final report makes the following recommendations
• To extend GP hours in order to make it possible for people working in different jobs to get appointments
• To promote information about the services available
• To translate this information into key languages to increase uptake
Read the full report here.
*Overall, 207 people were interviewed, across all participant organisations in the consortium. LAWRS has now been a consortium member for two years.
*The ten Islington-based organisations work to listen to and represent members of society that are not being heard by mainstream agencies.