Sev Necati worked in
partnership with Pembury Community Centre, and the Tampon and Tampax campaign,
to deliver our award winning project “Women & Young People’s Safety
Solution.”
We delivered two successful
courses and this is how our first course made a positive impact and difference to the group!
Our
course is specifically designed for women and girls to teach them how to keep
safe and empower them to make positive choices.
The training works towards reducing violence towards women and
girls. They learn how to build
confidence and self-worth. Females take
part in sporting activities, including self-defence activities and increase
their fitness levels, stamina, and strength and have an improvement in their overall
mental and emotional well-being.
The
project worked with local residents, from a variety of backgrounds, ages, abilities
and provides a safe and confidential all-inclusive service, to reduce
isolation, victimisation, fears, as well as providing an avenue to build
friendship’s.
The
Participant - Case Study - One
Taz,
43, India, married, 7 children.
Please
tell us why you became involved in your project/activities?
I became involved in the course because I
wanted to be more confident on the street and defend myself and feel better in
myself.
I wanted to feel if my children were in an incident
if something happened to them, I wanted to feel that I could protect them in
bad situations and do things correctly if anything was to arise. I have had people that have abused my
children but I have done nothing about it and I have felt that I wanted to
protect them.
My son, who was 16 at the time and was with
another family member, was in an attempted mugging with a knife, I was away,
and they were asking for money and that really shock me up, when I heard about
it. Even though I wasn’t there I didn’t
experience it, I thought to myself, what would I have done if I was there, I
would have been clueless. I realised you
can’t protect your kids all the time.
Also I was on my way to the hospital and my arm was in a cast and I saw a man following me. As I noticed this, they then started chasing
me, after he confronted me and I pushed him away with my cast, I started to run
and they said they would get me next time.
I actually pushed him before I ran off and if hadn’t had the cast on me
then I would not been able to do that as he was bigger than me, stronger and
taller.
I felt shaken and frightened and there was
no-one around at the time, it was day light and there was a school across the
road and I knew I was in deep trouble as they were not scared as they were bold
enough to do this in the day.
So when your course came up that made me
really want to do it.
Please
tell us how participating helped you?
The main things the sessions have helped me, they
have defiantly motivated me to take care of myself.
I got a lot more out of the course than I
thought, originally I thought I was only going to learn a few moves, but
actually joining the group, I mentally felt better because of all the theory
you covered. I learnt that I have to take
better take care of myself, as I hadn’t dealt with a lot of issues within
myself, that I had experienced and when I would feel low it would come out as
as anger. So when we spoke about taking
care of ourselves, I now feel more feel confident to say no to people, I never
put myself first before, everyone has noticed the difference in me, that I am now
willing to do things that suit me and not them, it has really boosted me in
that way, so I am doing more for myself and not for others as I was a yes
person before but now I am taking better care of myself.
I made some really good friends and we are
going to keep in touch and they are friends that are going to bring the
positive side out of me.
The activities we did were great, the floor
work and other activities I would love to continue, the activities were really
hard and I was surprised I could do them, I feel that in the future I will feel
more able that I can do something like this, as your course was really
inspiring and enabled me to believe in myself.
The group was different ages, backgrounds and
abilities and that was really good as you did a great job of selecting the group
with such diversity.
You are a great teacher as you really got
everyone involved in actually taking part in all the activities and you really
encouraged everyone.
Please
tell us what has changed for you as a result of engaging with the project?
What has changed for me is before I would go
from A to B and not look around and wouldn’t take any notice of anything, now I
look around me and don’t take short cuts and know what to do if someone is
following me, so I am more aware and self-aware and feel more confident generally,
with and without my children. I use to
do a lot of walking alone, I am being more practical and keeping myself
safe. When I am on the bus I know what
to do if I feel unsafe, and I have passed this knowledge to family and friends all
the safety tips you taught us, it has made a difference to other people’s lives,
as well.
I think that these courses are really useful
and the wider community should be able to access these courses on a wider
scale, they should be funded, and also part of the school curriculum for
children 14 to 15, as they spend money on many other things, but this is so
important as a practical life skill.
Keep up the good work!
Some of the Females
Comments
"I loved the floor
work & the pad exercises.”
"The practical has
made me very confident."
"Sev showed us that
you can be a small person & still escape from an attacker.”
"I am stronger than I
thought & I have grown hugely in confidence."
"Sev was excellent at
making us understand our rights & how to protect ourselves.”
"Learning to motivate
& value myself stood out."
"I enjoyed all the physical
self-defence sessions."
"Sev is a lovely
patient teacher that genuinely cares about our progress, making learning fun
& informative at the same time.”
"I am more confident
physically."
"Doing the practical
work boosted up my confidence." "I am stronger than I think I am."
"Training was clear
& very accessible."
"This training course was
an invaluable opportunity."
"I got my self-esteem
back & I am more confident."
"Improvement in my
physical fitness."
"This course has given
me confidence to continue an exercise program, which I often struggle to keep
up."
"It’s hard to meet new
people in London, so this was a fantastic way to meet people that I have a lot
in common with, people that I would not normally meet."
All names
of participants have been changed to protect their identity.
If you are looking for sessions, courses, workshops, projects and programmes
that are both engaging, interactive and fun, but also informative and
educational then please contact us at:
info@sevnecatitraining.com
If you think that you would like to get involved in our projects then
please get in contact. Our aim is to
reduce violence and the fear of violence especially towards females and young
people and we do this by delivering empowering and inspiring projects to the
local community. Please contact us: info@sevnecatitraining.com
