Sisters In Mind has been running since 2020 and helps women struggling with their mental health

A local community group setup to support isolated women struggling with their mental health during the pandemic is celebrated a £91,000 grant from the National Lottery.

Sisters In Mind has been awarded the funding to support its work with women’s health and wellbeing. The group, based in Ponders End, will use the money to increase their hub sessions, train women to be peer mentors and offer courses in self-care.

Sisters In Mind has been running since 2020 and is staffed by six volunteers. It was founded by Maria Aciyan, Patricia James, Elizabeth Thomspon and Angela Cousins who realised that women were struggling to connect with others and their mental health was being affected by the isolation and restrictions of the pandemic.

The group currently runs one hub session per week but with the help of this amazing award Sisters In Mind are partnering up with Ponders End Community Development Trust and Community Aid Enfield and will expand its reach by increasing to three hub sessions per week. The sessions offer women an opportunity to connect to others, learn new skills, build confidence and improve their ability to self-care in a safe, non-judgmental environment.

The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see new sessions offering opportunities for women to take more control over their group and train to become peer mentors to support more women.

For the first time Sisters In Mind will be able to offer sessions where women can bring their children along, to alleviate the stress of finding childcare. The fund will afford us a sessional creche worker to support this activity.

At the same time, the project will be able to offer advocacy services through partners Community Aid. In addition, wellbeing courses four times a year will support women to adopt a more positive approach to self-care and will include mindfulness, journaling, communication and physical exercise sessions.

Maria Aciyan said: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognized our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to build on current successes and improve and expand our offer to local women.

Patricia, a volunteer at Sisters In Mind, added: “It’s amazing, we can see the benefits of this group and now we can do even more for our community.”

The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its new strategy, ‘It Starts with Community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4billion of National Lottery funding by 2030. As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.

National Lottery players raise over £30million a week for good causes across the UK.

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