A Summer of Xenia Online: Reflections and Learning
Throughout the summer Xenia has continued to bring women together to connect, share and learn online. As an organisation, we’ve learnt a lot too and we want to share this openly, in the hope that it will help other groups that may be facing the same opportunities and challenges that we are.
Feedback from participants.
As always, we continue to ask our participants what they’d like to see from Xenia and encourage feedback. We also ran a survey to get a better idea of how virtual sessions have been for participants. They survey showed that 100% (6) of respondents feel they have made a friend from a new culture, with five out of six participants saying that virtual sessions help them feel more connected to other people and more confident speaking English.
Comments from the survey included that conversations in sessions are 'informative and fun', with one participant saying that she enjoys 'the possibility to learn English and at the same time learn about people from other cultures'. Another participant who joined virtual sessions several weeks after the start of lockdown commented she was happy to see her friends at virtual Xenia sessions after a 'long period of absence'. Other positive feedback included enjoyment of the range of activities and breaking out into small groups on Zoom.
Despite these successes, we know our virtual sessions aren’t suitable for everyone. Although the free phoneline makes it possible for women without internet access to join sessions, we’ve found that some callers have dropped off. Even though we have tweaked our facilitation to make it easier for women joining by the phone to participate, for some it’s not quite the same. Some simply don't want to join the virtual session, it doesn’t fulfil the reasons they enjoy coming and they are waiting for us to resume face to face services. This is something we will be looking into over the next few weeks.
What next?
As lockdown eases and venues begin to open again, we’re discussing and planning how we can safely transition to physical sessions and what that might look like. We’re starting by asking participants what they want and how they would feel about attending in-person sessions. We know we need to be creative and not limit ourselves by what a session is normally like to make it work in a safe, inclusive and accessible way.
In light of the Black Lives Matters protests that have taken place across the world, along with the vital discussions about racism in the UK and within the charity sector, our Organising Team and Trustees have discussed and reflected on what this means for Xenia. This is not the beginning or the end of our conversations about racism. We will always confront ways we need to educate ourselves and each other, and we are committed to doing this with every decision we make, in the short, medium, and long term. We want to be transparent about these discussions and hold ourselves accountable, so will soon be sharing our reflections and action plan.