Vrouw en Vaart
So, last week we did a lot of field research. It started with the meeting with Nursul Saygili who is working for the women centre Vrouw en Vaart in stadsdeel Nieuw West. We hoped that she had a lot of information about the women and how they felt about safety. This was not true! But no worries, she gave us some women to make up for it. A lot. On monday (30/9) and wednesday (2/10) we could talk to several women.
Focus group Turkish women
On monday, Turkish people were having coffee together. There were around 10 women. Me and Loes went there. We made this plan to ask questions and they could write their ideas on post its. Through these post its, we could make connections and ask further questions. But……. the situation was not as we expected it to be. It was very informal and everyone was laughing and sometimes talking Turkish. So we had a more informal discussion which was good, since there was a lot of information. According to the safety index made by the government, people should feel unsafe in nieuw west, but are actually safe. We asked them about this, but most felt safe during the day and did not go out when it was dark. The place they avoided was the park at night (nothing new). The interesting thing is that they felt safe, but they did a lot of things to make themselves feel safe. So they wouldn’t feel safe if they wouldn’t adapt their behavior.
Meeting with BOOT
After this meeting Adwait, Loes and me went to the BOOT office, which is an organisation that helps people with reading governmental letters etc. So if you do not speak Dutch and you get a bill that you don’t want to pay, you go to them. She told us about some interesting projects, like square 40/45 and railwaystation Lelylaan. On square 40/45 there were people working to make the place more safe, but also to guide people around who do not know the way yet.
Focus group Morrocan women
So wednesday (2/10) I had a great hike with Morrocan people. I arrived at Vrouw en Vaart and expected the same scene as on monday, but this was not the case. We went for a walk at 10 in the morning and did some nice
excercises. I talked to some women about safety. After we returned we had some tea (the most sugary tea evah) and the people had pancakes. They told me around the same as the Turkish people. They did not go out at night. They did not even go out on bike, cause they did not feel safe on the bike. So if they had to go out at night, they would take the car or take their husband. The most interesting was the organiser of the event. She told me (she was also morrocan, but her Dutch was perfect and she looked more Western than Morrocan) that those women were dragged out of their houses by the organisation. Well, not all of them. 7/10 arrived at Vrouw en Vaart throught the CWI (which is this organisation to make people go to work). So this was their first step into the wild. Does this make the information I just gathered kind of biased? YES. But still, the information can be used, but we have to consider that the women experience their neighbourhood as their whole world.
Plans
So that’s it. Tomorrow we will do some more field research in Nieuw West (plein 40/45) and actually get quantitive date so we don’t have to say ‘most of the women don’t like to got to park’, but we can say ‘30% of the women who have an age of 30-40 do not go to the park between 18-20’