Empowering women through Self Defence

The INARA project was started by six Muslim girls and aims to create an inclusive space, while offering opportunities to women from ethnically diverse communities.

Rajni Mahzabin, cofounder of INARA Project, said: “We decided during pandemic to do something that contributes back to society and creates more unique and special opportunities for women."

“A purpose of these sessions is to make women feel confident and safe in the community. There's been an increase in violence against women.

"There's been an increase in Islamophobic attacks as well. For our families not to restrict us because of the safety aspect.

"So, we want to reassure women that they can look after themselves whilst being out and about”.

Rajni further talks about how work of their organisation is done by reaching out the hand of friendship and creating unique volunteering opportunities for young women, such as project management, event management, fundraising and campaigning, marketing, networking, policy writing, research and contributing to creating services which serve women.

Currently, INARA project is running free self-defence classes for women. The classes are eight weeks long.

(Image: Inara Project)

Faiza, a girl attending a session, said: “I have loved taking part in classes and have been waiting to learn self-defence for a long time.

"Being a Muslim Hijabi woman, it has not been easy to find something female-only.

"Every session has been such great fun-recapping each move that we’ve learnt is beneficial and our instructor helped us with gradual process."

(Image: Inara Project)

Instructor Victoria Shurey said: “We wanted to be able to make classes quite repetitive, so defence learning becomes more a natural instinct rather than do it once or twice then forgetting about it. 

"Learning self-defence basics can help woman better understand and identify potential threats and arm them with the knowledge to be able to protect oneself in public."