Islington’s charity launches new women’s hub

UK charity Maya Centre has launched a new women’s hub to provide a community-led approach to counselling.

The new women’s hub launched on the 30th of August and is part of a broader mission to improve women’s mental health in the community.

The scheme aims to deliver co-design wellbeing workshops through peer support groups that focus on different specialisms and on women’s needs. 

The Maya Centre is a community-bases charity in Islington that provides free mental health and wellbeing services to women on low incomes.

Its services address issues that affect women’s mental health such as sexism, abuse and exploitation, isolation, exclusion and racism.

‘We need to support mental health’

Amber Nyankson, a community navigator, said: “Women in these groups have high levels of passion, drive, and creative thinking and are deserving of the same respect and opportunities that others receive, without their worth being attached to their skills or their perceived usefulness to society.

“Furthermore, these kinds of women often suffer more negative experiences when using government services like health, housing, education, transport, justice, immigration and childcare than the local population.

“This is why a project of this nature is necessary. We need to support mental health and address all areas of emotional and physical wellbeing for the women of Islington.”

According to recent studies, women between the ages of 16 and 24 are almost three times as likely to experience a common mental health issue as males of the same age. Women are also twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety as men.

Edna Samuel, another Women’s Hub community navigator, said: “Being a woman is hard work generally and adding the title black woman makes it more difficult because some people define you by your ethnicity, not your character. This puts many barriers to accessing services that give women the opportunity to be treated equally.

“The community navigator’s goal is to make sure that women have a choice to express themselves without being judged and to support women in becoming the best version of themselves, whatever that looks like to an individual. We want to empower women personally, physically, emotional, professionally, and mentally in their abilities and themselves.”