Sev Necati worked in partnership with Pembury Community Centre, and the Tampon and Tampax campaign!

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