
Sherifa Azzab, settlement worker at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House. | Photo by Tarek El Sayed
The Arabic Newcomer Women’s Group (ANWG) at MPNH has been supporting the health and wellness of Arabic-speaking newcomer women since 2016. According to Azzab, the group strives to be a welcoming community where women can build strong connections and feel empowered.
“We try to make things easier for them to settle smoothly into the community,” she says.
Building community
For Azzab, the primary concern that inspired her to create the group was isolation. She attributes the language barrier and cultural differences as leading causes for this issue, relating back to her personal experience as a newcomer.
“My English was intermediate, but, still, you can feel the isolation,” she recalls. “You don’t understand the culture [well].”
The group hopes to be a community that Arabic women can depend on, providing opportunities for members to form strong bonds and friendships. Azzab observes how new members are often overwhelmed and nervous, but older members alleviate this stress by actively sharing their stories and welcoming them into the group.
“When [newcomer women] hear the stories from longer residents here, they feel…optimistic, confident,” she adds.
As a settlement worker, Azzab provides orientation sessions in partnership with the Immigrant Services Society of BC, as well as information sessions on housing, healthcare, education and employment. This newcomer support group at MPNH fulfills another area of her work – helping newcomers find community.
“[The women] come from different parts of the Middle East, so when they come to the group, they make friends,” Azzab adds.
In addition to self-care and mental health support for the women, the group offers diverse activities for the members to connect. These events include information sessions, Zumba classes, barbecues and cultural events. As most of the Arabic members of the community are Muslim, the group also celebrates Ramadan and other holidays together.
Empowerment through
new skills
The women in the ANWG come from diverse backgrounds and situations. According to Azzab, the majority are between the ages of 20 and 50, and many are mothers with big families.
“Some [women] have their own education, their own business back home,” she explains. “Some not – especially the refugees that come from Syria are mostly homemakers.”
To support mothers, Azzab often connects members to outside parenting programs such as Nobody’s Perfect and My Tween and Me. For all the women, the group provides guidance on everything ranging from finding family doctors to applying for permanent residency or citizenship. In addition to translation and interpretation help, Azzab also refers the members to English conversation classes at MPNH.
“It’s very much helping them in every way to let them feel supported and not isolated,” she reiterates.
She shares how the members come from various career backgrounds and have a diverse range of skills and trades – including in the medical, engineering and accounting fields. However, transferring these skills to the Canadian context is difficult, as Azzab notes that few of the group’s participants received credential approval to work in the same field.
For women who are interested in entrepreneurship, the group also has workshops and classes. In collaboration with the Spanish-speaking community, the ANWG holds annual training for women to start and manage small businesses.
“[Some] have the skills of trades [such as cooking] food from home, doing jewelry, styling clothes,” Azzab explains.
From August to November, the group hosts classes on necessary skills such as building a website, creating social media accounts and marketing their businesses. These sessions culminate in a holiday market where the women can promote their businesses to the public. Reflecting on last year’s holiday market, Azzab believes the event to be a success.
“I had great feedback from the participants that were selling on the day of the market,” she adds. “People started following them on different platforms like Instagram [and] Facebook.”
Azzab hopes to continue growing the community and empowering the members to achieve their goals. She looks forward to the group’s future development, as they adapt to the needs of the women.
For more information on the Arabic Newcomer Women’s Group, visit: www.mpnh.org/arabic-newcomer-womens-group-empowering-women-building-connections