Your Heritage
Mostly from Southern Asia – India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – but also from Africa, China and Eastern Europe, many of the project participants came to Sunderland in the 1960s and 1970s, with some arriving more recently, perhaps as students.
"We want to ensure these women’s stories are not forgotten."
Shruti Jain, project originator
“Many of these women are getting older now,” said Shruti Jain, the project’s originator. “They have made an important contribution to Sunderland and their stories are really crucial too, but often the significance is unrecognised”.
The project aimed to redress this. Run by the women’s charity Sangini, volunteers extracted oral histories, archived them for libraries and local studies, and created a website, a short film and an exhibition of material.
Object handling groups were also organised. At one of these events, one woman brought along a small model of a santoor, a traditional Indian stringed instrument. She explained that when she came to the UK she couldn’t bring the original due to its size, so this was her reminder. It is memories just such as these that the project aims to bring to light.