On 8th December 2017 Southall Black Sisters held their annual Christmas Party for service users and their children at Mehfil (Banqueting) Restaurant in Southall.
The party was attended by the maximum we could fit into the venue, an impressive 70 women and 50 children. The guests were greeted with a welcome mock tail and canapes kindly donated by Mehfil and hugely popular with all age of guests. Mehfil put on a wonderful selection of food and everyone was able to enjoy a sit down meal.
For the children we were fortunate to have professional entertainers the Elf Duo (Brilliant Birthdays) who really were quite brilliant at entertaining with magic, games and prizes for an amazing full two hours. The children were indulged further by artistic SBS staff with face painting and glitter tattoos.
As promised SBS was able to give presents to every child and there were prizes for the women who won at best dancing and best dressed. For over 20 years DJ Nabila (and her associates!) has given her services to SBS events and her amazing talent made sure as always, that the women remained on the dance floor!
In past years SBS has had to host the Xmas party at our offices in very limited space accommodating only around 30 women and 15 children. The lack of space meant the children could have only a small party followed by a small party for the women and food had to be eaten while standing. So it doesn’t take much to picture how happy and excited the women and children were when they found out that the 2017 party was going to be a little more special than usual! A party they truly deserved.
The fact is that none of the above would have been remotely possible if it were not for our extremely generous donors. They provided these women and children with a memory they will cherish. We cannot thank them enough for enabling us to provide to our service users a chance to escape from their traumatic memories even if for a brief moment. It brought them together with one common aim – to have a well deserved moment to remember themselves for a change.
Our generous donors who don’t mind a mention were:
Organisations
Southall Travel
Bestway Cash & Carry
Moss Beachley Mullem & Coleman Solicitors
HSBC (Regional branch) Bank
Mehfil Banqueting
First Contact Opticians (Harrow)
Individuals
Manjeet Singh
Daljit Sandhu
Khadija Ansari
Catherine Capon
Barry O’Leary
Mr Ahmed
Helen Harrison
Sarah Forrester
