“On our walks we discover so many beautiful gems within Tower Hamlets. Little things like that make a big difference to people’s lives.”
Themes: Walking Group; Community Led; Peer Support; Community; Friendship
Naseema has been the lead of a women’s walking group at Bromley by Bow Centre for six years, since joining our Community Driving Change (CDC) Project and the 100-day challenge events series. She is a creative and community driven person who is always looking for new ways to enrich the lives of those around her. One of her biggest passions is sports and encouraging other people to put exercise into their lives. This was how she first came up with the idea of setting up her walking group.
As Naseema commented, “I have always really enjoyed walking. Rather than just walking on my own I thought it would be nice to walk in a group, other people I knew felt similarly so setting up a Walking Group just felt like the obvious thing to do really. It was, and still is, really important to me that it I start something that is open to people of any ability or age. In my group I have ladies who are quite a bit older or have arthritis so walking is something that they can all do as well.”
The Walking Group explores lots of areas of Tower Hamlets each week and discovers hidden places across London. Reflecting on their walks Naseema explained, “on our walks we discover so many beautiful gems within Tower Hamlets, when you walk you get to explore things and see more than you do from a car. For someone to see a peacock open its feathers in front of us, for example, is amazing. We’ve also found so many different pieces of artwork across the borough and London, from tiny sculptures on top of lampposts to amazing murals! Little things like that make a big difference to people’s lives.”
Recently Naseema also successfully applied to funding from our Participatory Budgeting Project so that she could introduce her group to areas of London that they might not otherwise have accessed. Part of her motivation in this project was to help members of her group become more confident using unfamiliar public transport. These walks are known as the Heritage Walks and have taken the members to a range of sites, including Kensington Gardens, Hampstead Heath, and Richmond Park. Naseema recalled a comment she received from one of the women in the group, “she told me something that really touched me. After visiting Richmond Park she said, ‘thank you for doing this, I get to see the places that I’ve never seen before. I never had that privilege as a child.’ That really made me appreciate what I’m doing.”
As well as offering the group opportunities to discover more of London there is an important social side of Naseema’s walking group. “It has brought some people out of isolation where they felt they couldn’t come out and meet other people. But in the group they’ve found that they’re getting talked to. They’ve made friends and the other people are in the same boat as them, they’ve got that shared experience. It’s like the saying: a problem shared is a problem halved. It has become a very close-knit group now, everyone’s really caring, and we look out for one another.” At the end of each walk the group always makes sure to spend some time together celebrating their walk and chatting, often accompanied by an ice cream or cup of tea.
The Centre has supported Naseema throughout her community work, from helping her apply to the Participatory Budgeting Project to spearheading community engagement initiatives to increase interest in the group. One of the main ways the Centre works with Naseema currently is handling the financial aspects of her project, including the oyster cards and deposits the trips use, “The Centre has been really helpful right from the beginning. If anyone is thinking of coming to the Centre and starting a group like I have I would always say to just give it a go and see where it leads! The Centre is here for the local community in so many different ways – it’s the kind of space where everyone can come and be together.”
