Aroona Smith
Aroona Smith is the Director at Silai for Skills. She was born in Pakistan and came to Bristol in 1962, when she was 7. She founded Silai for Skills in 1989 whilst working as a community worker with Totterdown Asian Women’s Group. Aroona was awarded an MBE in 2003 for her services to the community.
"Totterdown at that time was predominantly young brides that were coming and settling into Totterdown, not speaking any English. Avon County Council as it was back then thought that they'd start some activities for Asian Women. So that was my brief, to hold sessions for them, educational, cultural, social events. We started small, we used to do badminton, we used to do Saturday afternoons and by the time I had finished five...six years later it was really thriving.
I thought, what else could we do with the women...and sewing seemed to be the thing that could help them. Because they couldn't buy their own clothes in the shops and it was young brides who didn't know what to do...and there were some women that were sewing from home but were being exploited. Because they got cheap, very low wages, no contracts, no minimum wage, nothing. And we thought okay, let's try and do something.
Over the years I've been here with Silai, the sewing is only part of what's done here - it brings women together under one roof, they learn from one another's experiences. Bringing women together here has helped I think, tremendously in the community, and women to understand their backgrounds and what they do. The sewing is just part of it."
