Preparing to welcome new women to our community

Over the past few months, we’ve been getting ready to meet new women and their families who have sought safety and resettled in Scotland, because of the crisis in Afghanistan.  

We want to make them feel as welcome as possible, and not just like a guest. Scotland will be their home, and Moments of Freedom will be their space too. We're going to share our network and support, share our power and empathy, and make sure new members can have a say. 

Digital Skills 

In our meetings in Centre 81 we planned postcard-sized flyers to distribute throughout the community and discussed how we can make our sessions as welcoming as possible. 

We started learning digital design on Canva, this was so we could create welcoming designs that reflect who we are.  

Pause for reflection 

We had a 2021 reflection session where we identified our strengths and weaknesses and any gaps we wanted to work on in 2022. 

In our last meeting we came up with questions we liked to be asked when we first moved to Scotland and wrote down some conversation ideas to welcome the Afghan women. 

We also spoke about how we could make our social media presence as accessible as possible and plan to start having our posts in both Arabic and English, with one of the women from our group helping to translate.  

New Scots 

We'll meet the new women in February, for a cup of coffee and a warm welcome to the community. As existing Moments of Freedom members are New Scots who themselves resettled a few years ago, we can use the experience of being new to Scotland to create a welcoming space. 

We plan to have Arabic and Pashto interpreters so we can equally understand each other and create a safe, women only space.  

We have carefully chosen the topics and activities we plan to do as we understand that people are going through a lot of changes and difficult experiences.  

Keep an eye on our social media pages to see how we get on!