A spotlight on: African women living in Sheffield

United Women's Affiliation (UWA) help women from African countries, or with African heritage, living within underprivileged communities in Sheffield. They focus on raising awareness, building resilience, providing support and enabling underprivileged people to make full use of the services and support available to them to enjoy their right to improve their life, their family and community.

For this #SpeakUp project, they ran 15 events across Summer 2022, on topics like medication, mental health, and women's health, as well as wider determinents of health like access to green space and good quality housing.

Find out more about the issues facing this group of women below.

Language barriers are a major obstacle to care

United Women's Affiliation (UWA) works with around 90 women living in Sheffield. Most of them speak Congolese-Swahili and have limited English, which can make accessing healthcare really difficult. 

Health services should provide an interpreter for patients who need one during appointments, but UWA found that suitable interpreters (people who speak the right dialect of Swahili) are often not booked. This means the doctor and patient cannot communicate effectively, find it harder to build trust, and health issues can't always be explored properly.

This language barrier also means people don't always understand how to take their medication - doctors assume people can read the instructions, but if this isn't the case, then people might not understand how much to take, or how long for. This was a real concern for people, who often felt they were given medication too quickly and ended up on too many different types without understanding why. Not having information in the right language also means people don't understand the charges they're asked to pay - for prescriptions or dental care - and feel professionals could try to make this clearer.

People don't always feel listened to or respected

Some women said that health professionals don't take their concerns properly, meaning they struggle to get a referral for further tests or to see a professional. Others said they don't feel involved in making decisions about their care - including reproductive healthcare choices. 

This extended into wider issues that affect health and wellbeing - some women told us they live in Council housing but aren't taken seriously when they raise problems. We heard about issues like damp that weren't being fixed - "they say I can’t understand what you are saying I show them but they ignore me".

Information and education is really important - but needs to be delivered in the right way

The women who came to UWA's sessions as part of this project said they got a lot out of it - especially the sessions attended by doctors or other professionals. They said having someone to ask questions to and to listen to their experiences was really powerful. People do want to understand more about health, and how the health system works, but need to be given information in a way that works for them - in the right language, and delivered by people they feel respected by.