The Ultimate Separatist This book, aimed at an audience of youth work practitioners from the local authority and voluntary sectors, policy makers and Muslim organisations, Cage? discusses issues relating to youth work with young women from Muslim communities in Britain. It aims to promote good ‘girls’ work’ practice using case studies. The title is taken from a conference paper the author gave at the National Conference on Muslim Youth Work, which was delivered in a workshop that sparked Youth Work a lively debate. We hope the book, which follows up contacts of the new Muslim Youth Work Foundation with Muslim in order to involve a range of Muslim young women and youth workers in providing material about their practice, will have the same effect. Young ISBN: 978 0 86155 339 6 Women Price: £9.50 Gill Cressey Eastgate House, 19–23 Humberstone Road, Leicester LE5 3GJ. Tel. 0116 242 7350. Fax: 0116 242 7444. E-mail: [email protected] Websites: www.nya.org.uk www.youthinformation.com The National Youth Agency The Ultimate Separatist Cage? Youth Work with Muslim Young Women Gill Cressey The National Youth Agency Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim is translated as “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful” The Ultimate Separatist Cage? Dr Gill Cressey is a lecturer with the Community, Play and Youth Studies programme at the University of Birmingham and a director of the Muslim Youth Work Foundation. She has worked as a women and girls worker in Birmingham. Published by Eastgate House, 19–23 Humberstone Road, Leicester LE5 3GJ. Tel: 0116 242 7350. Fax: 0116 242 7444. E-mail: [email protected] Websites: www.nya.org.uk www.youthinformation.com Text may be photocopied free of charge for educational and training purposes. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be addressed to the publisher. The National Youth Agency is grateful to those individuals and organisations who have supplied articles and photographs for this publication. Views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily of The National Youth Agency. © The National Youth Agency, March 2007 ISBN: 978 0 86155 339 6 Price: £9.50 Printed in the UK by Spectrum Printing Services Limited, Leicester ii THE NATIONAL YOUTH AGENCY Youth Work with Muslim Young Women Contents Introduction 1 Why only women? 6 Ulfah Arts: Involving young Muslim women in the arts 8 Birmingham University Islamic Society (BUISOC) 11 Saheli Women’s Group: a neighbourhood initiative 15 Bolton Lads and Girls Club 17 Working with a mixed group of girls and young women 20 Muslim youth work: Beyond the hijab 25 To love Allah and to serve my country 28 Guiding in Bangladesh 32 SAFE Project 34 An-Nisa – By Muslim Women for Muslim Women, Children and Families 37 Conclusion: Sharing good practice in youth work with Muslim girls: the way ahead 41 Appendix 1: Reprint from Youth and Policy, Muslim Youth Work special issue 50 THE NATIONAL YOUTH AGENCY iii The Ultimate Separatist Cage? Acknowledgments This book was made possible by the following people and organisations Manaf Alderwish (SAFE project) Sadaf Ali (Muslim Youth Work Foundation) Charlotte Battersby (Girlguiding UK) Rakhyia Begum (Saheli Group) Farida Chand (Birmingham University Islamic Society) Julie Cockett (Birmingham Association of Youth Clubs) Simbi Folarin (Birmingham Youth Service) Andy Hopkinson (The National Youth Agency) Asmat Khan (SAFE project) Humera Khan (An-nisa) Muhammad Khan (Muslim Youth Work Foundation) Naz Koser (Ulfah Arts) Tasneem Mahmood (Muslim Youth Work Foundation) Nafisa Mallu (Bolton Lads and Girls Club) Bruce McLaren (YWCA England & Wales) Dalal Olewa (Saheli Group) Alanna Rice (Bolton Lads and Girls Club) Rachel Swygart (Girlguiding UK) Valerie Le Vaillant (Girlguiding UK) THANKS! Gill iv THE NATIONAL YOUTH AGENCY Youth Work with Muslim Young Women Ideas behind working with Muslim young women and girls HE IDEA for this book came up during the first national conference on Muslim Youth Work in Birmingham in December 2005. One of the workshops of that event was on youth work with young women and girls and had the same title as this book: The Ultimate Separatist Cage? This is a reference to remarks being made at the time by senior politicians about Muslims in Britain and about the position Tof Muslim women in families and communities. Since then there has been a new media commotion about young Muslim women wearing the veil, particularly those who wear the covering over their face in addition to a headscarf. This too was taken by politicians and media commentators to be an act of separatism rather than a personal choice of dress code. We have reproduced a statement about why women-only work is important with kind permission of YWCA later in the book. The YWCA statement was used as a resource for a conversation topic at the event ‘Muslim Youthwork: Conversations and Actions’, (a well attended follow up to the Birmingham conference that attracted many new delegates as well as some of the people from the Birmingham conference in Bradford in 2006). The event’s Girls’ Work discussion forums were popular and raised important issues and demand for serious consideration to be given to the needs of Muslim Young Women. ‘Angry critics denounced Single sex youth work with girls and young women is not new in Britain. It has a long and interesting history. The National Association ‘girl scouting’ as a of Youth Clubs was once the National Organisation of Girls’ Clubs. There have been girls’ clubs and local and regional federations since ‘mischievous new 1861 (Carpenter 1981). There is a secular as well as a Christian and Jewish history of separate work with girls and young women in Britain. development’, a ‘foolish and YWCA was founded in 1855 by Miss Emma Robarts and The Hon Mrs Arthur Kinnaird. Miss Robarts started organising groups for young pernicious movement’ and women who were coming to London for the first time. Mrs Kinnaird opened a hostel in Upper Charlotte Street, London for Florence an ‘idiotic sport’ ’ Nightingale’s nurses, en route to and from the Crimea. YWCA has supported disadvantaged young women for 150 years. The Girls Friendly Society was founded in London in 1875 by an Irish woman – Mrs Elizabeth Townsend. She wanted to help lonely girls who came from the country to work in the city. The Girls’ Friendly Society in England and Wales (campaign name GFS Platform) has worked with girls and women nationally and internationally since then. There were also single sex uniformed organisations. “At the Scouts’ first rally, at the Crystal Palace in 1909, a small group of girls turned up. They represented hundreds of other girls and insisted that they wanted to be Scouts too. Angry critics denounced ‘girl scouting’ as a ‘mischievous new development’, a ‘foolish and pernicious movement’ and an ‘idiotic sport’. However, Baden-Powell’s letters from this time show that he had a scheme for girls in mind. In 1910 he formed the Girl Guides, asking his sister Agnes to look after the new organisation. A few years later his wife Olave became involved and, in 1918, was appointed Chief Guide.’(Girlguiding UK website). The Girls’ Life Brigade, which was founded in England in 1902 by the National Sunday School Union (now known as the National Christian Education Council) was a Church based international movement offering a varied programme for four age groups “to help encourage girls to become responsible self reliant, useful young women”. It was one of the forerunners of the Girls’ Brigade. THE NATIONAL YOUTH AGENCY 1 The Ultimate Separatist Cage? None of this work with young women was just about leisure activities, there were educational, social and economic aims including inclusion, self reliance, confidence, peer companionship, a living wage, improvement of working conditions, support for young mothers and reduction of isolation, abuse and exploitation of young women including migrants. A key difference between approaches was and is different attitudes to gender and this has a class dimension to it. Jean Spence suggests that ‘in the history of work with girls and young women the continuities of method and form obscure a deeper disjuncture in political philosophy and purpose. The interventions of women youth workers in the Victorian and Edwardian period were influenced by an essentialist approach to gender which would have been anathema to those feminists who promoted work with girls and young women in the late twentieth century’.(Spence 2006, p.243) Often girls’ clubs and organisations have been set up by upper middle class women for ‘less fortunate girls’ – working class young women. Feminist youth workers in the 1970s were accused, by resistant male youth workers, of trying to bring a middle class project to bear in working class neighbourhoods and clubs. Rather than being sequential, this disjuncture appears to be ever-present in work with Muslim young women. Today’s work is based on a great variety of philosophical approaches and purposes. Welfare work with working class young women and girls as one tradition is still evident in that Muslim women are for the most part members of working class families, communities and neighbourhoods. Feminist attempts to change the role and status of women in society are another To try to understand the distinct approach that has led to projects with young Muslim women both by Western feminists and Muslim feminists. Socialist community needs of young Muslim development aimed at addressing class inequalities and strategies to improve the lives of disadvantaged communities have also had an women in Britain today impact on this field of work. All of the youth workers involved can find common ground in form and in pragmatic aspects of the work yet is to try to understand a disagree fundamentally about the aims and purposes of the work and the outcomes sought by and for young Muslim women.