Foundation Cleo-Patria

Foundation Cleo-Patria

Annual Report 2003

Stichting Cleo-Patria

p/a Heer Bokelweg 114

3032 AD Rotterdam

tel. 010 4659944

e-mail

Purposes

1. Purpose of foundation Cleo-Patria is to create a safe meeting place in self management. Important is that those women finally will be able to create their own independent place in our society. Self government does not say that everything must be done by volunteers. The year 2003 was in the light of more professionalism. It’s not that we looked for high-educated women. We want to give the women, who already work as volunteers in the women-centres, the opportunity to follow some courses so that they will learn and develop. If this is financial realizable the purpose is to give them subsidized jobs.

1. Second purpose is that Cleo-Patria must be a multi-cultural meeting place. Rotterdam is a city where more than 150 different cultures have to live together. It’s important to get to know each other, to learn about each others habits and about each others differences so that we understand each other better to live more easily with each others.

Keep your own values but come to collective rules/standards.

(We naturalize not alone, but we acclimatize together.)

Management

In 2003 there was a change in the management. This because we had the question to develop the multi-cultural centres also in other sections of the municipal.

Meanwhile we have set up 5 foundations, one mother foundation with four daughter foundations. Every daughter foundation is responsible for their own financing. Foundation Cleo-Patria has the supervision and is at the end responsible for all foundations. She is also the organ were we speak about vision and future possibilities.

In 2004 every management position of the daughter foundation must be filled in to develop management participation. If it’s necessary we will give the new members of the board a management course.

Miss Zolikha El Ouakil stayed as a member of the board for foundation Women centre Cleo-Patria. Miss Adriek Bromberg joined the raad van bestuur (Board)

Developments

March: Request of foundation ‘werken aan de stad’ to develop a women centre in Feyenoord, an other district of Rotterdam. This became studio ‘de Peperklip’.

In Kralingen, an other district of Rotterdam, we spoke about the development of a women centre. In December the section Kralingen has given a positive answer on this.

Foundation ‘kwaliteiten en werk’ started in October with their first discussions.

Underneath the reports.

Members Raad van Toezicht (BOARD)

Brahim SealiChairman

Peter VullersVice-chairman

Nancy Babel

Aissa Berkani

Adriek Bromberg

Birsen Yurdakul

Management

Anneke de Goede

Organ gram Foundation Cleo-Patria

Foundation Cleo-Patria

(raad van toezicht)

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x

x

Manager

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Fd women centreFd studio PeperklipFd kwaliteiten&werk Fd. Kralingen/

Cleo-Patria(qualities&work)Crooswijk

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xxxx

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Hostess

Activation therapists

Volunteers VolunteersVolunteers Volunteers

Foundation Women Centre Cleo-Patria

September 2000– December 2003

Introduction

Last year was the end of the pioneer phase and the first step to a more professional way.

For us professionalism begins by clearness and good structure. The question raised who is responsible for what. We are very happy that some of our funds gave us the opportunity to contract two of our women as hostess and as assistant activation therapist. Both women started as volunteers in Women centre Cleo-Patria.

In September 2003 we also contracted a neighbourhood mother.

Soon we noticed that women centre Cleo-Patria became too small. For all the activities as well as the individual and confidential conversation as well as the normal meetings there was only one room. We had to find a new location. We are now talking with ‘de nieuwe unie’to find a bigger location in the neighbourhood

Self Management

During the year we discovered that it was hard for the volunteers to keep their discipline. This had two reasons.

1The volunteers receive an amount of 25 euro each month. The visiting women, who came very often in the centre thought they didn’t have to participate in the daily management and organisation. They commend, the volunteers to make coffee etc. because they say ‘they get paid for it and we don’t’. Most of the volunteers were not assertive enough to handle this situation and then dropped out.

2The volunteers had the duty to come to their job, the duty to call if they couldn’t come. This was also a learning process for them.

We decided to gave them a participation course. Miss drs. Ergül Kaygun, a recognized coach gave the course. We made an appointment with every single volunteer to talk about the interpretation, both side, of the volunteer job.

We told them about the participation course and that they had to come all the 8 meetings if they decided to follow the course. In the beginning everything went well. Every woman was represented and enthusiast. But then there started somewhere else a study Dutch language and we lost 4 women. Finally only the hostess and to other women finished the participation course.

Because of this bad result we decided to dismiss all the volunteers who didn’t finish the course. By means of the new foundation ‘kwaliteiten en werk’ these women can get a new opportunity.

Beside some bad results we also had very good results. Herlin Lindeborg and Pembe Bayrak both started as volunteers but, because they work very good and hard, we had the opportunity to give them a payed job. Thanks to some of our funds. Since 1 January 2004 Herlin is contracted as hostess and Pembe as assistant activation therapist.

This was the end of the pioneer phase and the beginning of a new phase.

Both women are responsible for the daily structure and the organisation of the activities. In September one woman started, on their own request, as neighbourhood mother. She also is a member of the board of Foundation Cleo-Patria.

Activities

Painting:

After completion of the wall-painting the women wanted more artistic activities. Together they decided to start painting the symbols of each different culture. On the front-page you can see a fragment of the painting about African culture. The following cultures were painted: Islamic, Asian, Australian, African and refugees. Now they want to paint West-European and the South-American cultures.

During the painting they spoke about the different manners of raising the children in the various cultures, about what it is to be a woman, about rites and uses etc.

The women were very enthusiast, they like the painting classes so much and they wanted to make a painting for their children. Now, in each nursery there is a beautiful painting of their mother. 15 to 20 women painted every week.

Multi-cultural cooking

In 2003 the most important pilot was to learn about each others cultures. Monthly one culture cooked for the other group. That was a real challenge. Was it kosher, hygienic enough etc? Carefully all the different courses were tasted. Some of the Turkish women didn’t dare to come, but afterwards they come to ask if the dinner was good. The Dutch vegetable soup was chosen as the best of all and is now cooked in a few families.

Eating together was very good. In the relaxed sphere there started many intimate conversations. The subjects were sometimes not easy. For example violence in the family, standards for raising your children, the power of the man in some cultures etc. But above all they all had the same fear about weather their children will grow up as strong adults, who can handle this world. They recognized each others fear problems en questions.

About 25 women came every meal together.

Healthy food

The GGD (health care) was willing enough to give a course about healthy food in the women centres. But they had for every different culture a different course. But the policy of Cleo-Patria is to learn together about each different culture so that they start to participate. We don’t want to give a course for a monoculture. So we didn’t want that course. Finally we found a volunteer who wanted to start such a course for all the women together.

Healthy Moving

We all now that it’s important to keep moving and we all wanted to sport sometimes. For some of the women barrier to go to a sport centre or a swimming pool was too high. We started to give some kind of aerobics on Wednesday in our own centre. Weekly there come about 8 women. Nowadays these women also have the courage to go to the swimming pool.

Conversation classes

The women in the centres are very low educated and therefore the barrier to follow Dutch classes is very high. Some of the women are illiterate. Cleo-Patria thinks it’s very important to learn the Dutch language, and all the women recognize this. The willing is there, but the barrier too strong. In September we decided to start with some daily conversation lessons as the first step to go later on to the Dutch classes. A number of very beautiful illustration book were bought and also ‘my first 1000 words’. So first they learned some words and later on also some important conversations as ‘going to the doctor’ or ‘doing my shopping’.

15 women came each day to these lessons and the lessons will follow up in September 2004.

Discovering Holland

During the monthly meeting of the women about how it went in the women centre the question raised to learn more about Holland. Not only the society but also some other city’s and other organisations. We decided to go to a place in Holland every 3 months. First we went to The Hague with Madurodam (Holland in small) were we lunched in a real restaurant along the cost of Holland. 45 women joined us.

Still on our list: Amsterdam, Volendam and the politician of the Netherlands centred in the Hague.

Orientation on the Dutch society

In the women centres you have the opportunity to meet other women, other cultures. In the safe environment you can take some barriers. The safe atmosphere in the centre gives the women the challenge to take some steps forewords to the Dutch society. Questions raised about the Dutch society.

Now frequently we have some items to learn more about the Dutch society

• ‘Steunpunt Wonen’ spoke with the women about how and where you can give your view about your own environment.
• The women actively participate in ‘Rotterdam in dialogue’ during the Iraqi a war. They made a painting about this war, which was showed in de ‘Laurens church’ during the war.
• We organized a dialogue-table during the ‘Day of the Dialogue’. The intention is to organise a meal in your own organisation and than invite strange people to have the dinner with you and have a conversation with them.
• We invited some politician to ask them about their policy.
• The tax department came not only to tell about taxes in Holland but they also helped to fill in the forms. For some of the women it was the first time the get tax return instead of they had to pay tax!
• The women became more and more active in their neighbourhood.

What is the success of the participation process? We tend to say you need education or work, but for us it’s nearer by. We were for instant very glad when our Turkish and Moroccan women shared us during our yearly dinner in a restaurant. The first year only one woman has that courage and she wanted to leave within half an hour. Now they all shared us and stayed until midnight. For us that’s also progress with regard to participation and emancipation.

Information was given about;

• Governmental system of Holland
• Politics
• Change of life symptoms
• Healthy food
• What can you do for your own district?

Visitors

In the year 2003 many people visited us. Not only from our own country but also from England, Germany and South-Africa. Also our Queen came as well as our mayor mr Opstelten a few times. Also some of our politician came to visit us as well as student’s professors, the labour party from Liverpool as well as the regional institute for outpatient mental health care. We didn’t notice everybody, but it was a lot. If we had received from each group of visitors 1000 euro for our time and reception we now didn’t have to ask for subsidies.

Conclusion

At the end we can say that the year of 2003 there was a lot of activity. A lot of activities were organized and many women participated in the whole process. Weekly some 100 women from 12 cultures visit the women centre. Also groups like Somalia women who are hard to reach and almost come nowhere.

We want this to continue so there is enough challenge for the year 2004.

Preview 2004

The big change was the two fellow workers Herlin and Pembe, They will take care of the daily organisation and structure. This means that we can try to reach new target groups.

New target groups

In the Millinxbuurt there are many teenage mothers. A lot of them have problems with there parent, finance. Raising their child etc. In 2004 we want to develop a program so we can reach also this group of people.

We also want to do more for our Somali women.

Activities

• Alternative babysitter so the women have more time to do things for themselves
• Self-confidence, Independence, self-defence
• Confidence-group for women who want to talk in secret about violence abuse etc.
• Conversation lessons for partners, so the men also can learn more about the Dutch language.
• Daily conversation lesson for illiterate women and women who are just a while in Holland
• Multi-cultural dialogues, given by the women themselves not by a professional
• Political and environmental awareness.
• Rules of the Dutch law/
• Healthy moving
• Co-operate with other organisations, like schools, GGD, Riagg, Foundation ‘kwaliteiten en werk’, women centre ‘de Peperklip’, women centre ‘Kralingen’etc.
• Reaching structural more and more women
• Big wish: We wish a new bigger location!

Foundation Studio ‘de Peperklip’

September-December 2003

The start:

1First discussions in June, July, August with Monica van Gest en Yvonne dos Santos. At that time we also spoke with the painters to restore the building. We wanted to open the women centre in September. There were many contacts with all the parties but the final decisions were made by Anneke de Goede. At that time there was no organ from were the decisions could be made. The consultations with all the groups in the Peperklip were very important because the balance of power was lost. We had to seek for a new balance and a new relation between all the women in or nearby the Peperklip.

2The development of decoration of the building went soon. De Goede Bromberg as well as Women group ‘Welzijn Feyenoord’ delivered here furniture and stocks. Extra chairs were borrowed by women centre Cleo-Patria. From own investments and an advance of foundation Cleo-Patria we could buy the rest of the inventory.

Now we could start!

The beginning of the social process

Everybody was enthusiast. In the centre came a list were the women could describe what they like to do and which activities they want. There appeared many ideas and many names. About 25 women from different nationalities became the heart of the group The social process was started. Who was responsible for what and which decision was the best to make? All went well in the beginning but then something happened. The story went that somebody has stolen the candy-pot and now nobody wants to be responsible for the key anymore, because then it was there fault when something was lost.

We had to talk a lot with the women before this story was over. This was the first barrier, some will follow…..

Second problem was made by one of the professionals. She became more and more involved in the women centre as a woman and not as a professional. There was not enough distance anymore. By talking with everybody we also solved this problem. You will have such problems by the development of a social process. Don’t interfere too soon in such a process. It will give the women the opportunity to develop themselves so that they can grow and feel safe in the group. From the mistakes they make they learn to make better rules and their own rules. They learn about their own limits and learn to trust on their own qualities. We had to stay on the background as a safety net, open for advice or a conversation when they want that.