Women’s Afternoons

Dancer Liisa Heikkinen, Utajärvi, immigrants, November 2017, February–May 2018.

A group of five women who moved from Congo and Syria to Utajärvi gathered on four afternoons each week to exercise and relax together with dancer Liisa Heikkinen. The group provided participants the opportunity to meet other immigrant women, use newly learned vocabulary and increase wellbeing through movement and relaxation. The feedback highlighted the importance of togetherness and the spirit-improving effect of enjoyable and meaningful activity that prevented the participants from getting stuck home in front of the television, as one of the participants stated.

The women’s afternoons will continue in the spring of 2018 observing the role of dance-based group activities in integration and communality.