2.

One of the first times I met Linda she was talking about chickens. In Cameroon, she told us, a certain part of chicken is reserved for the head of the house alone and no one else can have it. Her mother had told her that if women try to eat that part they'll be cursed and would never be able to have kids. When Linda came to Europe she saw that it was easily available to everyone at the supermarkets and not too expensive either. She certainly wanted a piece of that 'forbidden fruit'.  She laughs and tells us she is the mother of three kids.


It was not easy getting in touch with Linda or the group she leads. The group congregates at a church a bit further out of the main city in a neighbourhood of mostly Turkish and some Eastern European population. There are soviet style apartment buildings all around and the Church itself does not look like it could inspire devotion. However, this is a place where Linda has been hosting the group of African women. It's only been a year since Linda joined this place and since then they've been cooking and eating together once a week. "Everything comes out at the table", she tells me. "We don't just cook and eat, it's a place for sharing stories, for finding friends and building relations".


In a few months that I had been volunteering with the centre that supports undocumented people, I had hardly seen any African women. There are quite a few that come to this group and often confide in Linda. She tells me how suspicious these women tend to be of people here considering many of them were brought through trafficking. Some come with partners who then abandon them and they are left to fend for themselves in a completely foreign and hostile environment. The only place they trust is the church and that's also how Linda met most of them. When she took charge of the group, a year into the pandemic, she went door to door to distribute flyers about sports activities she wanted to arrange. She feels strongly about raising awareness in women about their health and nutrition. Nobody was showing up for the activities so she stared visiting African churches to introduce herself to the pastors. Gradually the word spread and with the community she has now, she arranges several activities for these women to unwind and enjoy. Linda wants to change the way advocacy is being done for African women in The Netherlands but the works starts from within her organisation where she feels much needs to change in the way they understand integration and African migrants in Europe.