We have been working closely with a number of community based organisations. These include Fatima Women’s Association - a well-established group that work with Pakistani and Bangladeshi Women on the edge of Alexandra ward.  A community worker has joined our Age Friendly Project Group, and has undertaken some Asset Based Community Development training. This resulted in her being very keen to develop ideas with older women with whom she is already in contact with - plus reach out to even more.

The community worker organised an Ambition for Ageing launch event providing the venue, refreshments and Pakistani and Bangladeshi interpreters.  Twenty five women attended and from the discussions a number of themes emerged, in particular, the women talked about how older people can be very isolated, even in family settings, and how learning conversational English was seen as a priority. 

Attendees were keen to link with English speaking older people, which is now one the investments agreed  - and have been proactively linking with the other Ambition for Ageing wards as a result. 

The event generated significant interest in the Ambition for Ageing  programme. Eleven women have subsequently formed a working group to develop their own skills, research more solutions and work closely with the Ambition for Ageing project team. 

Other investment ideas have included setting up a forum for older women aimed at bringing new women in and sharing information about what is already going on and some activity classes.  It is hoped from these activities that we will identify women willing to go on our ward steering group or get involved as volunteers.  Most of the women prefer not to join a mixed gender steering group and we will be looking at ways of ensuring they have a voice and an influence, perhaps either by having a separate, but linked, group or worker representation on the steering group.