Founded in 2016 as an experiment as part of the Anti University events , Xenia emerged from local women’s desire to connect with others in their area across differences, welcome newcomers to Hackney and make language learning more accessible. We’ve been going strong ever since, meeting every Saturday in Hackney - enabling more and more women to share, connect and learn from each other. Come along one day to find out more- or watch our video here.

In June 2022 we started a monthly Xenia session in Sheffield. The sessions have gone from strength to strength and they are now fortnightly in a central location. Refugees, asylum seekers, migrant and British women are welcome to join us to discuss a variety of topics that matter to us. We are working in partnership with Sheffield Museums to plan a series of visits to local heritage sites. Come along or get in touch! sheffield@xenia.org.uk

Food brings us together and here at Xenia involving cooking (and eating) in our session is always popular. In 2022 we ran a series of workshops supported by the Near Neighbours fund allowed us to share memories, stories and recipes about food from our culture. We were also able to run 4 cook and learn workshops where participants taught each other recipes from their own countries and we all enjoyed a delicious meal together. In 2024 we have begun working with the brilliant Hackney School of Food to run cook-a-long sessions at their fantastic kitchen.

In 2024 we have started a project supported by the City Bridge Trust to develop the voices and leadership of Xenia participants. The women who come to Xenia sessions have always participated in the planning and delivery, but through this project we are developing their skills as facilitators as they deliver sessions on themes that are important to them. We have also joined Citizens UK and we are developing our understanding of community organising together, in order to make changes in our lives and engage with local political decision makers.

On 9th March 2024 over 70 people attended Xenia’s public launch of our Trailblazing Women map of Hackney. This event was the culmination of an Untold Stories project funded by the GLA. Xenia participants decided to redress the lack of diversity in the public sphere by recognising the contribution of underrepresented women. We also wanted to bring communities in Hackney together by curating a trail which reflects the super-diverse demographic. During the project Xenia participants developed their skills and knowledge by researching stories of women in partnership with Hackney Museum, Hackney Archives and Newington Green Meeting House. They helped design the map with illustrator-as-historian Kremena Dimitrova, recorded the stories and developed their confidence to speak publicly at the launch event.

You can pick up a map at one of our partner organisations or download it here: https://www.xenia.org.uk/trailblazing-women-trail

In 2022 we launched the Xenia walking club. We teamed up with Hackney Walks and the project was supported by Ground Work. Monthly walks allowed us explore Hackney and other areas in London - participants chose the themes of the walks. In 2022, participants from a wide range of backgrounds received training to be walk leaders themselves and can now take on running the walks for other participants. We continue to have regular walking tours in our Xenia sessions.

With the generous support of the Charles S. French Charitable Trust, we ran six weaving workshops in the first quarter of 2022 with participants from migrant, refugee and British backgrounds. The workshops were facilitated by the artist, Raisa Kabir, with the aim of weaving together the stories of the many different women who participate in Xenia workshops through an embodied practice. This provided space for participants to discuss the history and meaning of weaving in different cultures across the world as well as the significance of different forms of weaving in their own lives and the personal experiences they associate it with.

Thanks to funding from the Greater London Authority Xenia ran the “Hackney Museum Take over” in 2020-2021. Working with museum curators & educators, we ran a series of workshops over 3 months through which participants got to explore the museum collections and learn about heritage practice. Participants were supported to find objects of meaning from their own lives, write captions for these and temporarily add them to the museum’s virtual museum collection (covid times!). You can read about some of the objects which participants contributed to the museum collection here.