The place to thrive: visiting the Baytree centre

Blog by: Durant Des Aulnois, Josephine; Avni, Umran; Badruddin, Zohreen; Madriaga, Allison; Lai, Yiqiong

As the team working with Wonder Foundation, our mission is to create a short film about the FATIMA project, an initiative that helps women migrant to learn English and integrate in their community.

Friday was a most fruitful day for the group! In the morning, we had a session with STAR (Student Action for Refugees) that taught us about the complexity of asylum-seeking process in the UK. Part of our work as active citizens is to understand the challenges faced by others. This lecture was most useful for our work with the Foundation, as it introduced intersectionality (the belief that discriminations are inter-connected and have to be treated holistically). Helping women migrants imply to look at gender’s influence on education and language barriers.

The afternoon saw our first visit to Baytree centre (the project’s HQ): although it was closed, we were able to meet Rosa, a volunteer of Wonder Foundation and the Fatima Project.

Rosa has been mentoring young girls for two years and told us how much this experience has brought her. Drawing on her testimony and making good use of the room we had been allocated, we changed the focus of our film. We were able to draft our storyboard and our script, all that in two hours! Friday was a good day indeed!