Pulling Together Asian Women's Group

Growing Confidence Through Gardening

Recently, the young women from Pulling Together Asian Women’s Group enjoyed a wonderful visit to a local garden centre to explore, learn about, and choose plants for their gardens.

A key part of the trip was learning how to pick plants that were suitable for the season, helping everyone understand what would grow best at this time of year. For those who did not have access to a garden, we looked at indoor plants and Lego-style brick bouquets, which the young women could build and enjoy indoors.

The trip was especially inspiring following our visit to RHS Bridgewater, and the young women were excited to start planting their own choices. They really enjoyed getting hands-on and planting their plants, and seeing how gardening and flowers could have a positive effect on mood, confidence, and wellbeing.

Over the weeks following our visit , we planted flowers and vegetables in containers, helping the young women to:

• 🌱 Build practical skills
• 💪 Increase confidence
• 🤝 Develop social skills
• 😊 Improve general wellbeing
• 💬 Enjoy more opportunities for social interaction

This project inspired the young women and showed them the many benefits that gardening can bring to each individual.

A huge thank you to Stagecoach for funding this project and helping us make our local area truly “Bloom”

---

Summer Day Out at Bridgewater Gardens

On a sunny Saturday in August, members of the Asian Women’s Group enjoyed a relaxing and joy-filled day at Bridgewater Gardens. The trip was a wonderful chance to unwind, connect, and take in the beauty of nature together.

We strolled through stunning flower displays, explored the peaceful glasshouses, and shared a delicious picnic lunch surrounded by blooms and laughter. The day was filled with smiles, stories, and a sense of togetherness that made it truly special.

A big thank you to everyone who came along and helped make the day such a success — and to those who organised transport, food, and all the little details that made everything run smoothly.

Check out the gallery below for some of our favourite moments from the day!

This month at Pulling Together we have completed our Healthy Matters project and would like to thank Awards for All for funding this project. Everyone agreed that it was a great way to learn about what is important with regards to our own personal health and that of our families. Especially with family dynamics and expectations playing a significant role in health behaviors and decision-making.

We finished the project by giving all those who took part with supermarket vouchers for them to make healthy balanced meals as they were told about through the project.

This month at Pulling Together we would like to thank local GP, Dr Farrah for talking to us all about women’s health, diabetes, healthy eating and where to access help and advice.

Over the last three weeks the GP has talked to us about issues that affect us all and what we can do to help ourselves and our families.

She also talked about the importance of attending regular breast screening and cervical screening appointments when they are sent to us and where to get help if we have missed any of the appointments or have any concerns.

Some of the questions were:

Are South Asians more likely to get diabetes and why?

Why do we have so much heart disease and is it because of our diet?

Can L ask for a female nurse at a breast screening?

Where to get help for mental health issues?

Can I give blood if I’m anaemic?

What do I do if I want / don’t want to be an organ donor

This month at Pulling Together we completed our Health Matter Collage. We all enjoyed creating the collage and deciding what words would be included on the board and all agreed having the image of the young woman in the centre of the board and all the images and words that kept us healthy to be around that image.

This month at Pulling Together we have seen the Health Matters project develop into the plan of the collage and the young women decided that they would work on posters designed in Canva to highlight what they thought was important to them in their health journey or what they would like to make family members pay attention to. The artist has begun to stitch some of the images for the collage and hopes to complete it with the embroidery words that were decided on

This month at Pulling Together we have continued to look at out Health Matters project and decide what images and words to design for our collective banner and what to do for their individual work. Working with a local artist the young women have been drawing images that can be manipulated into files for embroidery. Choosing words that would best describe how they feel would also be integrated into the collage.

This month at Pulling Together we completed our digital version of our comic book. We would like to thank everyone that was involved with producing the comic as well as our funding from Public Health in Art.

This month at Pulling Together we have continued with our Health and Wellbeing project with Q and A sessions with a local GP from The Delamere Practice. She helped us understand the importance of regular health checks for diabetes, breast cancer, bowel cancer and high blood pressure. Being able to ask questions in a safe environment without fear of feeling as though you are wasting your doctors time. The young women had sent in anonymous questions that had been sent on to the GP who was able to answer them while on the Zoom meeting. She also showed how to check your breasts regularly and explained the importance of this.

This month at Pulling Together we have continued with our Health and Wellbeing Comics funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund through Public Health in Arts(Trafford). We have spent the last few weeks designing the comics and discussing what stories to include. Making characters that reflected the image of ourselves was a favorite of the members of the group. Using the comics was a fun way to talk about issues that affect our local community.