The last twelve months have been challenging in so many ways it seems overwhelming to even attempt to list them here. The impact of what we see and hear in the news everyday is unbearable. It can make us feel hopeless and isolated, fearful of what the future holds. It creates anxiety for our communities, our children, our families, and ourselves. Every time we hear another story of heartbreak, violence, loss and hate it can shake our beliefs and our view of the world. It can feel like each day can be a choice to give up or find the strength to carry on. We don’t have to watch or read the news to feel it.

There is a palpable growing sense of fear and sadness, and it is completely justified. Working for a small charity like ours means that we see all the challenges and heartache up close. Collectively as a society we know we are all struggling. We can see how our mental health is suffering for so many reasons. It all has an effect. When things are so hard it can lead us to feel at an individual level that there is little to nothing we can do. This is often the recurring thought that we can have as individuals which can make us feel hopeless, and for us working with families who are disproportionately impacted by all these challenges it can be hard to keep going.

We were founded by women who recognised something needed to be done and they just did it. Like so many small ideas that lead to meaningful change, they just made a decision and did it. That changed everything. For all of us touched by it, involved in it, or helped by it, our lives have changed in some way. It started as something small that led to becoming a funded project to becoming a charity and ultimately to becoming a community that has a shared ethos of belonging and kindness. Sometimes we can get hung up on numbers; how many families do we help? How many will experience meaningful change? How many will have better relationships and opportunities? It’s important, we need to find out what works and get real evidence to demonstrate impact, but we also don’t want to lose sight of the unmeasurable because the quality of what we experience and the significance of the connections we make are really what give us all meaning.

In simple terms we are a charity that has grown in recent years to respond to multiple needs of the community we support. We started with an idea that was a response to need, but the idea was just the start. Every day we are still working on understanding that need and all the others we haven’t thought of. It doesn’t stop. We want to understand more about what is needed, wanted and effective. This can come through in numbers, but it can also come through in our conversations; when we put down everything else and really listen. When we do that because we care and are interested to hear what matters, that is what creates meaning for all of us.

#whatreallymatters #maashanti #strongertogether #southasiancommunity #costoflivingcrisis #violenceagainstwomen #domesticabuse