Sayma Ahmed and Rita Satti were welcomed to the first meeting of 2019 to inform members about their voluntary community organisation ‘Unity in Vision’ based in Bournemouth.
Sayma gave a very humorous history of her life in the UK since her arrival in 1967. From her varied experiences of her happy marriage, bringing up children and helping to run the family restaurant she has been able to apply her acquired skills to helping people from diverse cultures to settle into the British way of life. Similarly Rita complements this amazing duo with her passion for community engagement, training and education and safeguarding.
Unity in Vision is a voluntary community organisation that operates across Dorset. It has been running for 10 years, with the main objective to unite people from diverse cultures to work co-operatively to benefit the communities directly in its area of operation.
To fulfil the objective it uses the vehicle of providing a Lunch Club which is organised with the support of the Friendly Food Club and The Training and Learning Company after all food reaches across all cultures!
Other objectives include –
- To bring people together from ethnic minorities to meet and talk
- To increase integration into our society and increase civil involvement
- To provide future training opportunities such as cooking courses for each culture represented in the areaThe charity is currently expanding the project into other areas of Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire as well as develop learning activities particularly focused on refugees and asylum seekers as part of the service.