The South Asian Women’s Health Awareness Association

SAWHAA is a non-for-profit making, limited by guarantee, charitable organisation. SAWHAA is a unique service run by south Asian women for south Asian women and girls to meet the needs in a culturally and religiously sensitive setting

Overview

SAWHAA was founded in 2002 and is a non-for profit making, limited by guarantee, charitable organisation.

The need was identified back in 2002. We came into contact with many south Asian women who suffered from mild forms of mental health illnesses, who wanted support and help but were unable to access services either statutory or voluntary as almost all services were set up to cater for the needs of severe mental illness patients. The majority of women who came to us cited that they were unable to access mainstream services as they faced additional barriers such as lack of language skills, cultural and religious discrimination and differences in cultural practices.

We discovered through our work that in the whole of Bradford there was no specific centre, which was set up that created awareness around mild/moderate mental health needs of south Asian women.
As mild to moderate forms of mental illness can be as devastating and as decapitating as severe mental health illnesses we became concerned that this vulnerable group of women had no service provision, support or information outlay. Many of them were suffering stress, depression and anxiety, sometimes this was due to being isolated at home.