How we started….
Here is our story, directly from our Founder, Sharon Hanooman:
Having worked for Waltham Forest Council for 20 years as the Lead Officer for the Voluntary & Community Sector and Grants, I could see that were numerous small women’s community groups who had similar aims and objectives but were not working together.
So when I left the Council in 2005 to go to work in Hackney, I decided to set up the Asian Women’s Network (AWN) for any Asian women irrespective of faith or religion.
I contacted some active Asian women in the Borough at that time to join me, such as Shireen Shaikh and Tara Khare, and I am very pleased to say that Tara is still a member of the Waltham Forest Women’s Network (WFWN) after 16 years and both Shireen and I stood down only last year (which was in 2020)!
The main aims of the AWN was to allow women to network with each other, to organise Women only events such as the annual International Women’s Day event on 8th March every year and to empower women to look at other opportunities such as Women in Public Life, myself being a local Magistrate.
AWN was constantly approached by other women, who were not Asian, asking if they could join us as there were no other women-only organisations in the borough at that time. So we revised our Terms of Reference to open the organisation to any women living or working in Waltham Forest and after a few years, we relaunched as the Waltham Forest Women’s Network (WFWN).
We have had our challenges over the years since 2005 with lack of funding and not enough capacity to help organise all the events and workshops we wanted to do but I am so pleased and proud to see how WFWN has flourished with new and younger women joining the organisation. WFWN has definitely gone from strength to strength and I am very much looking forward to seeing what the future brings in terms of opportunities for WFWN to develop further.
Onwards and Upwards Women of Waltham Forest!!!