Shama Womens Centre was established in 1983 by a group of local South East Asian women in Leicester, with the aim to empower women facing multiple barriers to become more active economically, educationally and socially, through a range of activities.  The Centre is managed by women with lived experienced to support disadvantaged women in Leicester predominantly from ethnic minority communities overcome cultural barriers in addition to poverty, abuse, mental health, poor education, skills, unemployment and health inequalities; through a range of  interactive activities; with Leicester ranked as 32nd most deprived local authority ( 2019 IMD).    The Charity is a Company limited by guarantee; its Directors are all women and members of the Management team and are actively involved in its strategic decision making . It addresses complex social issues facing women by using a holistic, culturally conducive , person centred approach through a menu of support activities, actively involving its users to shape its services to meet the evolving complex social issues the community faces, It has on average 1500 users a year; representing enclave communities such as Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women; who face isolation and health inequalities, including poor mental health. It provides a range of services to empower women to become more active educationally, economically and socially improve their health and wellbeing supporting over 50,000 women and their families since 1983 at times of trauma such as bereavement, domestic abuse, covid , cost of living crisis; helping  more than 30,000 women gain accredited qualifications of which 76% have secured employment.  It does this by providing a range of multi-cultural programmes in education, training, employment and mental health support in a culturally conducive exclusive women’s only centre. It not only provides immediate support at times of trauma, but ongoing support helping build the confidence and skills of women accessing the programme so that they can achieve. We have an on-site gym and sauna to promote fitness and a nursery to help remove access to participation for women with dependent children.