A winning woman helping women from Longsight!

At the last minute last week I was asked to stand in for someone and present one of the awards at Manchester International Women's Day Awards.  I'd been involved in organising the awards as Chair of the IWD Steering Group but we like to leave the award presenting to previous winners or women leading in their field. 

Imagine my delight when I discovered that the winner I was announcing was a woman who has been working to make a difference for women in Longsight. The winner was Nadia Ali who I presented with the “Women Shaping Their Community” Award at a ceremony held at the Manchester Town Hall. Honoured at the event were women who have made real contributions to Manchester life in fields such as science, art and sport.

Nadia was awarded the honour for her tireless community volunteer work. Years ago Nadia founded a very unique group – the Asian Single Parent Group. This group was formed after Nadia met many Asian single parents in the area, who were facing issues such as isolation, oppression, mental and physical abuse and lack of confidence and self esteem. The group provided a space for these parents to come together and share their feelings and anxieties. The parents involved became more confident, accessed training programmes, applied for paid employment opportunities and formed close friendships.

Nadia went on to successfully produce and present a radio show on ALL FM, named the Independent Woman Show. The show addressed the issues that single parents were facing, particularly those from South Asian communities. She effectively addressed these issues and campaigned for the rights of Asian Single parents.

Nadia has been a crisis worker for the St Mary Sexual Assault Centre and had a voluntary role with Manchester Rape Crisis. Over the past 17 years, Nadia has voluntarily supported over 75 women and has effectively signposted them to relevant service providers.

Nadia successfully completed the training to become a Parent Survival trainer and engaged many parents from Ardwick to participate in the course. Nadia was also instrumental in the initial development of Healthy Ardwick due to her effective partnership working abilities

Nadia is still very much involved in the local community and has recently set up a Zumba and Bollywood fitness class for local women as a way of addressing their health and wellbeing needs. 195 women are registered. This is an extension of the service that Manchester Dragon Tae Kwondo Club, which has provided a safe space for children for seven years.

Well done Nadia a very well deserved award. 

Why we still need International Women's Day

Last Friday, 8^th March was International Women’s Day. I am often challenged when talking about International Women’s Day about why we still need it. Here is an extract from my speech to the International Women’s Day Awards ceremony last week which highlights a few statistics from the Counting Women In Report, illustrating why we still need to celebrate women’s achievements and campaign for equality.

“It (Counting Women In Report) tells us just 22.5 percent of MPs and 17.4 percent of the Cabinet are women.  In Manchester Central we - for the 1^st time ever – last year, elected a labour woman member of parliament, Lucy Powell. But really Manchester what took us so long?

Women make up a mere 13.3 percent of elected mayors and 14.6 percent of Police and Crime Commissioners.

In the league table of the representation of women in politics, the UK has since 2001 fallen from 33^rd to 60^th place.

Tonight we are joined by some fantastic female journalists from the Manchester Evening News and the BBC – in their industry only 5 per cent of Editors of national daily newspapers are women.

When it comes to finance and the economy, a job which the men seem to be making a pretty big mess of at the moment, there are no women at all on the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee. Not one single woman. In 2013 how can that ever be deemed acceptable?

I wondered when reading this report what Emmeline Pankhurst would have made of all this. Over 90 years since her campaign for votes for women sometimes it feels like we have made hardly any progress at all.

We all know that there are consequences to this shocking lack of diversity in public life. It is weakening democracy and the public’s confidence in it.  By not ensuring that women are represented in decision-making we are wasting an enormous amount of talent. The huge economic challenges that we currently face will not and cannot be solved men alone.”

Keep on top of your finances

The Citzens Advice Bureau in partnership with Great Places are running a number of financial literacy classes at Northmoor Community Centre, Northmoor Rd.

The classes are FREE but there are only 10 places available at each session so please call into the centre or email to book on a class.   Each class will run from 11am to 1pm  on the following dates:

27th Feb

13th March

27th March

10th April

24th April

Women's keep fit in Longsight

Quite a lot of residents have been asking me about women only sports in Longsight. Here are the ones that I know about (I will add more and update this page as I find out about new classes):

Zumba 
@ Jain Community Centre, 669 Stockport Road,
Monday
6.30-7.15pm  Zumba
7.15-8pm  Belly & Bolly Bootcamp
£3 for both classes
Thursday
10-10.45am - Zumba
£2

Zumba

@ Northmoor Community Centre, Northmoor Rd

Tuesday

5.45pm

£1

Gym Session & Zumba Class 

@ Belle Vue Leisure Centre, Kirkmanshulme Lane

Gym 

Monday

12noon to 2pm 

12-2pm every Monday

£2.10 

Zumba 

Monday 

12.15 to 1pm

£3.30

Manchester celebrates International Women's Day 2013

Since 1911, the 8 March is celebrated around the world by governments, education departments, charities, businesses, women's groups and people as International Women's Day (IWD). On this day and throughout March thousands of events occur to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women and reflect on the continuing challenges women still face. Many groups around the world choose different themes each year relevant to global and local gender issues.

I have the honour of Chairing Manchester City Council's International Women's Day Steering Group with partners such as, Manchester University, Manchester Co-operative group, Manchester Galleries and Museums, local third sector groups and local businesses. The IWD steering group chose the theme for Manchester's International Women's Day celebrations in 2013 - Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).  In the UK women make up only 9.1% of those working in STEM industries in the private sector. This years theme is an opportunity to raise awareness of STEM careers for women in the city.

As part of IWD 2013 Manchester City Council will be hosting the International Women's Day Awards on the 8 March at Manchester Town Hall, these awards are an opportunity to celebrate the achievement of women in the city often working in industries where women are under represented.

In addition to the awards there are over 50 events taking place across the city, some funded through the Manchester City Council IWD small grant fund and others from the fantastic Wonder Women Festival and other partners.

Please download the Diary of Events for information about all the events across the city throughout March 2013. Download the Diary.

Finding out about bins and recycling in my area

I have been getting a lot of enquiries lately about bins and recycling.

The City Council has an online system for waste and recycling so you can find out when your bins are collected here

You can order a free collection for a bulky item here (two free collections per household a year).

If there is a problem with your bin collection you can report it here

Finally if you need to you can order new bins here

If you are having persistent problems with your bins and bin collection please report them to me by email

Consultation on drug and alcohol services

Manchester City Council is asking residents to give their views on its proposals for drug and alcohol services in Manchester. This is the latest consultation for residents to find out more about the 2013 -15 budget proposals for the directorate of Adults Health and Wellbeing.

The proposals look at ways in which savings can be made in commissioning services for drug and alcohol treatment as a result of a reduction in Government funding, without having a detrimental impact on the treatment of drug and alcohol users in the city.

The consultation runs until 10 May.  Consultation details are as follows:

•     8 March 1pm - 4pm Hapurhey Neighbourhood Project, Carisbrook Street
•     11 March 3pm - 6pm Conference Hall, Town Hall
•     14 March 1pm - 4pm Wythenshawe Forum

For full details of the proposals, links to further details including the full committee reports and a chance to give your views about the plans, go to www.manchester.gov.uk/consultations, where you can complete the online questionnaire or visit any branch library.