Happinessintowerhamletsfinal

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Creating choices for disabled people, transforming communities and fighting injustice

Mums find happiness in Tower Hamlets Livability’s Mat Ray meets a newly­accredited Happiness Course leader and finds out how the course went down with a group of mainly Asian mums in East London. In March 2014, Livability’s four­week Happiness Course was run for ten mums whose children attend a primary school in London’s Tower Hamlets. Six were British­born Asians, while the others had migrated to this country. In all, nine were Muslim and one was Hindu. It might be a cliché but their children’s education is important to the group. The Happiness Course challenged one of the mums, who said “Maybe I’m learning not to push my kids so hard – do they really need A­stars to be happy?” This course was the very first to be delivered by one of our newly­accredited course leaders. Alison was the pioneer, using the course in her work to engage with parents in an inner London primary school. The group were incredibly positive about their experience – every one of them said they would recommend it to a friend, and Alison already reports requests to run the course again! The group’s background made for some fascinating conversations. For example, researchers tell us that marriage is one of the keys to long term happiness – but the group was interested in the difference between arranged marriages and ‘love matches’ . Their answer? “It doesn’t really make a difference if it’s you that chooses your husband, or it’s your parent’s choice. You still have to decide to accept and love the other person as they are – you can’t change them.” Other women compared their lives to the lives of family back home in Bangladesh: “In my village, people work hard all day in paddy fields, then come home to a small tin house, but I think they are much happier!” There were also some moving insights from individual women. One explained that she had spent time living in a refugee camp, but described that period as much happier than when she first moved to London, as she was surrounded by friends and family. Another described how after escaping an abusive relationship “I had to decide – was I going choose to be positive or negative?” The group also discussed their concepts of success, “It’s totally changed my idea of success.


Before, I thought success was a business and a big house, but now I know success can be being a good mother, having a successful marriage.” The main thing that most of the women took from the course was a desire to better connect with their children. Most had taken the opportunity to talk to their kids about what made them happy. A few of the mums had teenagers and spoke powerfully about realising why their kids are at risk from gangs – “If the gangs are the only places that offer them friendship and acceptance, then they will join. We need to help them find other ways of being happy.” In fact, the women were keen to see happiness taught in school – in the words of one mum, “They do all this literacy and numeracy, but what’s the point if they aren’t happy?” Mat Ray Livability March 2014 Courses are run regularly for those who want to run the Happiness Course in their community. For more information, and for details of forthcoming training days, visit http://www.livability.org.uk/church/happiness/

www.livability.org.uk


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