Middle Eastern Women and Society organisation (MEWSo)

MEWSo is a grassroots organisation developed and run by members of the communities that MEWSo serves. Our strength consists in our ability to engage women who face multiple disadvantages in accessing mainstream services. MEWSo supports local women from Middle Eastern, North African and Asian backgrounds in their own languages, including Farsi/ Dari, Kurdish, Pashto, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew, Hindi/ Urdu, Bengali and French. MEWSo helps BME women who may have just arrived in the UK or have been a resident for many years. The vast majority of our service users have been a victim of gender based violence and discrimination such as sexual or domestic abuse, FGM, forced marriage, child marriage, polygamy and/ or honour related violence. Staff and volunteers are from the community and have personal experiences of the issues facing the women that we support.

MEWSo is unique in that it provides holistic support to any woman seeking help. This is because MEWSo knows that women that come to our organisation often have complex needs and therefore we consider the whole person when we offer her support. A service user can get emotional support through our counselling and mindfulness programme, informational support through our advice service and training workshops, companionship support through our befriending and social clubs, physical health support through our exercise classes and career support through our one-to-one English language scheme, volunteering programme and employment advice service.