UNITY DOES MAATER CIC WILL BE RECEIVING AN AFRICA4U AWARD AT THE CITY HALL IN BRADFORD ON SATURDAY THE 23RD OF MARCH
INFORMATION ABOUT THIS AMAZING ORGANISATION CAN BE FOUND BELOW
The African saying ‘it takes a village to raise the child’ means that everyone has a responsibility to raise and look after everyone younger and elder. Unity Does MAATer CIC (UDM) is a community-based organisation that organises and delivers fun educational interventions (events and projects) to young people, adults and elders primarily of African/African Caribbean heritage that raises their aspirations to do more and be more.
UDM was founded by Urban Muhammad who was looking for ways to achieve unity within the black community. Minton Goodison soon joined. Lisa Wisdom was asked to join to bring a feminine energy to balance the masculine energy, both Jennifer Martin and Valsi Walsh attended a meeting and never left! UDM was constituted in March 2015, and incorporated in January 2019, with the aforementioned five directors and dedicated volunteers.
WHAT DOES UDM DO?
UDM interventions include (but are not limited to) well-being, finance and culture that builds confidence and resilience to challenging circumstances; self-development; embracing of technology; financial literacy; self-esteem and other activities that contribute to social change for living a positive life, that you want to be living. All UDM directors have many responsibilities, resulting in us donating our time, knowledge and skills to our community of LS7, Chapeltown, Leeds.
Initially UDM started with having debates to find out what the needs were in the Chapeltown Community, themes included: – Why does unity matter? and Why do our children inherit dust? We have since organised various edutainment events such as fun fact finding and public speaking; vision board; fun fitness challenge; fun finance; black heritage walks and natural product making workshops. One project (Oct 2021 – April 2022) was CV19 Conversations in Chapeltown allowing us the opportunity to learn from our Elders on how to best advise the community in dealing with the CV19 pandemic, and to build resilience. Our elders shared their struggles with their journeys to the UK; their struggles with finding work; dealing with racism; having their ideas stolen with no credit; how much faith has kept them sane and shared what they want to hand down to the next generation as their legacy.
In 2019 UDM continued the Afrikan Market Leeds, an indoor marketplace where Black Owned Businesses can build their brands, market test their products, and offer in-person experiences to the diverse community of Leeds.
UDM’s longest running service is Chat and Craft in Chapeltown (September 2021) provides a low intensity mental health intervention that does not rely on specialists. This service is a safe space for our adults and elders to come and craft (knitting, crocheting, colouring in, customise t-shirts, card making etc); have conversations; listen to music for two hours a week on Wednesdays, between 11am and 1pm at the Church of God of Prophecy Leeds.
The objective of the service is to bring people together in a safe and secure way to reduce loneliness and to build lasting connections. The attendees of the group have produced some wonderful knitted and crochet items that they have donated to UDM, to sell at the Afrikan Market Leeds allowing us to raise funds. UDM also ran a 6-week Chat and Craft in Chapeltown in the evening project.
UDM also runs 4-Day Edutainment Workshops for the young people. This consists of Natural Product Making; Arts and Crafts, Vision Board Workshops, Financial literacy and Black History.
LISA WISDOM – 9ETHERTOUCH FOUNDER?
Lisa launched 9EtherTouch in March 2022 at the Afrikan Market Leeds after running Natural Product Making workshops with the young people. During CV19 and the recommended use of alcohol-based hand santiser for our young people was a great concern! The unintended consequences such as skin irritation, dryness, cracking and peeling was acknowledged in many research journals. Lisa delivered Wellbeing and Natural Product workshops with young people, providing them with the opportunity to make natural hand sanitiser and other natural body products.
Inspiring the young people to think about creating a side hustle selling these products, sparked the launch of 9EtherTouch. With the rise in allergy diagnosis, people are educating and researching ingredients by reading labels, and are consciously choosing to use more naturally derived products over chemical-based products created in a laboratory.
The inspiration behind the 9EtherTouch brand name came from numerology, 5 love languages and the elements in nature. 9 is the number of completion. Ether is the creative force in nature. Touch and Quality Time are my top love languages. Touch is healing!
WHO IS LISA?
Lisa is a natural organiser, from organising events, trips (sitting in the audience for filming Gladiators, return journeys from nightclubs using her father’s coach company Magnet Express Limited.) Lisa has had many job roles including Bartender, Sales Assistant, Customer Services Representative, IT Helpdesk Support, IT Trainer, Team Leader, IT Project Manager Director of various companies and Treasurer. Lisa also delivers vision board workshops, as she knows the importance of our children being able to visualise and manifest what they want, where they want to be and how creating goals (breaking them into achievable tasks) can help towards preparing them for success.
Lisa is a natural mother to one however, has lots of children, nieces and nephews due to giving credence that it takes a village to raise the children and to love and support each other both adults and elders. Lisa loves to learn new things and loves travelling to the Caribbean and the Motherland to learn more about her roots, nature and culture.
Lisa’s health journey began preparing for menopause, after researching and observing the women in her village and different environments. Lisa learnt that in Asia, South America, Caribbean and Africa that menopause is seen as a new cycle in a woman’s life and is managed naturally. In Europe menopause is seen as a problem and is managed with pharmaceuticals. Not being raised to take prescribed drugs, Lisa knew HRT was not an option! Yes, what you eat has a hand in how you experience the menopause symptoms. Lisa stopped eating meat, created new habits, eating more vegetables and fruits; less processed food and eating more raw foods. As Lisa was being conscious about what she was putting into her body, then she had to be conscious about what she was putting onto her body.
9ETHERTOUCH PRODUCTS
9EtherTouch natural body products consist of • Armpit Rub (deodorant) • Beard Oil • Body Rub • Body Scrub • Face Pack • Foot Soak • Alcohol-Free Hand Gel • Lip Balm • Mood Mist • Clay Soap • Whipped Body Butter
https://www.instagram.com/9ethertouch
https://www.facebook.com/9ethertouch
Email: 9ethertouch@gmail.com
TONY TOKUNBO ETEKA FERNANDEZ 