W.A.I.T stands for Women Acting Individually & Together. This encapsulate the strength of women as not only having the personal resolve to deal with life issues on their own but when mobilised as a group to having the capacity to challenge and overcome adversity and marginalisation faced by many women.

W.A.I.T seeks to engage with females who are vulnerable, have a role to play or are affected by current vulnerabilities such as extremism, knife crime, gang violence, domestic abuse and  offer them an opportunity to address and manage these issues in a more productive and positive manner.

Current understanding and ground work suggests that if an open and transparent channel of communication is offered that works in a multi-layered fashion, the issue of addressing grievances and supporting vulnerable individuals can become a process that is owned and managed in a community setting, in parallel with accessing mainstream and faith based solutions.

W.A.I.T has therefore been established in order to cater for the high volume of cases that the Active Change Foundation has dealt with over the last few years that have been related to female vulnerabilities. By having a project such as W.A.I.T up and running allows this women led project assist other women in need in a much more comfortable environment.

W.A.I.T aims to assist and provide services for females only, with the exception of families based on the nature of cases; however females are the centre point. Within this project are various tenets and the W.A.I.T association focuses on working with a broad age group of females aged 12+.

This broad group has been split into two:

• 12-25 year olds
•  26 year old+ females

W.A.I.T works particularly with females from a Muslim background, however the project is not exclusive to Muslims. The justification behind this is based upon the reactions and vulnerabilities within the Muslim community post 9/11 and 7/7.

The ethnic breakdown of the group is varied with a high fraction of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asians (primarily Pakistanis).  There is also a fraction of Somali females involved and females from other African backgrounds. The smallest of ethnic groups is mixed which includes Europeans and Muslim reverts from all backgrounds.

Upcoming W.A.I.T developments:

•             Female Advisory Group

•             Outward Bounds Project

•             Young Female Leaders Project

•             Learning Excursions

•             Monthly Potluck Club

•             Book Club for Mature Women

•             Fulltime Youth Centre

•             Monthly Workshops

Contact our office for more information or if you can contribute in any way to this project.