An amateur film produced by West Newcastle Women and Outline Arts Trust in which women from various ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds get a chance to learn more about each other’s lived experiences through this video project. Filmed over the spring and summer terms of 1988, six women record either their home lives and families or the Community Room at Westgate Hill Primary School in Newcastle where many Sub-Saharan and South Asian women learn to speak English as a second language or...

An amateur film produced by West Newcastle Women and Outline Arts Trust in which women from various ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds get a chance to learn more about each other’s lived experiences through this video project. Filmed over the spring and summer terms of 1988, six women record either their home lives and families or the Community Room at Westgate Hill Primary School in Newcastle where many Sub-Saharan and South Asian women learn to speak English as a second language or are taught sowing and fabric printing. Several discussions featured recorded in the participants native languages: Punjabi, Bengali, French and Arabic. Title: Getting to Know You In the Community Room at Westgate Hill Primary School a group of Sub-Saharan and South Asian women work to sow and fabric paint, two of them are using a sowing machine. Their instructor Shamshad from Pakistan is interviewed by her sister who is holding a microphone about what she is teaching as part of this community project. She also talks about a video project she is also involved in that is teaching her how to use a video camera. In another part of the room three young woman work to place a video camera onto a tripod before connecting cables to a video player and monitor; several VHS video tapes sit on the table beside them. Five women from West Newcastle Women sit behind a desk in the Community Room, they attempt to introduce this video but take several attempts to get it right. Exteriors of several ethnic shops and takeaways in the Westgate Hill area of Newcastle. In the playground at Westgate Hill Primary School two women surrounded by children smile at the camera. Back in the Community Room the women continue to work on the garments they are making, one woman sits at a sowing machine while chatting with the woman beside her. Title: A Video produced by West Newcastle Women and Outline Arts Trust In another part of the Community Room two women sit at a table working with fabric patterns, around their feet children play. At the back of the room a small kitchen area, nearby a table with mugs of hot tea and coffee. A woman holding her child watches the women work, she sees the camera and smile. Two women sit in comfortable chairs chatting, one of them is doing embroidery. Two young girls wonder around the room staring and smiling at the camera which follows them. Mrs Saeed, Negus and Shamshad talk in Punjabi about the place of traditional clothes in school, and the importance of the women’s group. Behind them another woman watches over two girls sitting at a table. At Redewood School a group of women continue to work together to design and make their own garment. Several use industrial sowing machines. In the living room of her home Shamshad sits on the sofa sorting fabrics, at her feet a small boy watching television. A young woman comes into the house and speaks with the man, possibly her brother, behind the camera. Shamshad goes upstairs, she speaks to those downstairs in Punjabi. Outside in the driveway two boys playing, they speak with their neighbours. The family sit around the television enjoying a meal. In the home of Angela her mother comes home and is greeted by family and friends who begin to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. It is her 80th birthday. Angela’s mother smiles happily as she removes her coat changing to her sitting in a chair while behind her a man looks back on her life like an episode of ‘This is Your Life’. A woman attempts to predict the number of children her sister-in-law will have by holding a ring on a chain over her. The home of Nagwa from Sudan during a family visit, she sits with her daughter on her knees brushes her hair. She laughs and chats happily with someone off screen. Nearby, five children playing on the floor of a living room. In the fourth household of Bedana from Bangladesh one of her sons plays the violin, four of his siblings sit nearby listening. Wearing a sari Bedana serves up rice onto places at the dining room table. In the kitchen she works to cook a meal while listening to music. Back in the Community Room at Westgate Hill Primary School Latifa, Ambia and Namita discuss in Bengali the problems of not speaking English fluently. They talk about second language classes and the importance of creches as well as the negative attitude of some men. Around a table two of the women are being taught English by a local woman sitting at the far end. Around them other South Asian women listening, they talk about the weather in Pakistan and Bangladesh where these women come from. In another room Malika, her sister and Haram talk in French and Arabic (the women are from Algeria and Sudan) on how they feel about the women’s group. One of the women have three small children who play around her. In the living room of Fowzia who is originally from Libya three of her daughters dance for the camera while she watches from the kitchen holding a metal cooking pot. In the home of Sapna whose family comes from Bangladesh her younger brothers and sisters dance happily together. In another room two of Sapna’s sisters followed by her mother pray quietly. In the terraced street outside their home the children seen previously play around a red car parked nearby. Back at Westgate Hill Primary School Shamshad speaks with Sapna about her forthcoming arranged marriage. Sapna wants to stay in Newcastle to work and go to college, she believers her future husband will let her, but she hasn’t met him yet. Sapna walks along a street and goes into a local market. Inside she explains to Angela the different types of exotic vegetable that is for sale. Back at home Sapna and her sibling work to prepare a meal featuring some of the exotic vegetables seen at the supermarket, preparing them in the traditional way. As the women work, a version of Fred Astaire’s ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’ called ‘’You say Chapati…’ Around the dining room table the family eat the food that has been prepared. Back in the Community Room at Westgate Hill Primary School women from many different ethnic backgrounds socialise together over cups of tea while around them their young children play. Some of the women get up to leave, other work in the kitchen area preparing food. Title: Special thanks to the women who took the Video home – Nagwa, Shamshad, Sapna, Bedana, Angela and Fowzia and all the women who took part Title: Also thanks to Fiona McPherson for ‘You Say Chapati…’ Credit: Lal Gudi and Shri G. Jayaraman for music from the Live Concert at Middlesbrough Ben Moore, Teacher Advisor for Media Studies at the Education Development Centre Newcastle upon Tyne End Credit: Funding by Northern Arts and City of Newcastle upon Tyne