[img_assist|nid=281|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=50|height=49]We had our Christmas/Eid/Hanukkah event and it was really lovely, with over 50 people coming including Jews, Christians and Muslims (as well as people from Sikh, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Bahai and atheists backgrounds). We ate doughnuts and latkes (potato cakes) (for Hanukkah); roast chicken, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce (for Christmas); and seerkomo (milky pudding/drink) and Samosas (for Eid) - as well as chocolate money (for all three!).

We also played Dreidels, and Pass the Parcel and had time to mix and mingle and get everyone talking to someone new and different. Mehru Fitter of Coventry Multi-Faith Forum provided great materials for displays on all three festivals.

Below are some of the comments from people who came and had fun:

[img_assist|nid=92|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=100|height=56]Recently we've hosted international visitors from Kenya, Chicago and Japan, as well as continuing to attract international students as some of our volunteers.

[img_assist|nid=299|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=60|height=80]We fund the work we do in a wide range of ways. Some work is grant-funded, some is done on contract to larger institutions - but for our international work, donations from our supporters are vital, and we've run two fund-raising auctions in recent months to support this. Both were held at Rona and David's house - Rona reports on them both below:

Three new volunteers have joined FHVP in November. They are all friendly and confident female volunteers who can bring new perspectives to our work.

As some of you already know, Mino and I are going back home to Japan in January. We have lived in Coventry for over three years now and we are really sad to leave ... I made so many good friends here and all of them are an important part of my life. Coventry is my second home!

At home we have started sorting out our stuff. It's so hard to decide which ones to take home and which ones to leave behind... Ahhhhhhh!!!!!

Women's Lunches

Our organisation has some really exciting events. One of them which I most often attend are the Women's Lunches. Warm and relaxed atmosphere, meeting women from different cultures and backgrounds with delicious food and fun activities – what more could a woman want!

Look here to find the date for the next one - see you there!

Hello from Angela Knight, the newest member of the FolesHillfields Vision team. I joined the project in May this year on a part-time basis.

So what has the last six months been like? This is an interesting organisation to work for, unlike any other organisation I've worked in before, and I have years of experience of working in Voluntary and Community organisations. When I first started the team were deep in the throes of Global Citizenship so I never really saw much of them, however this gave me an opportunity to familiarise myself with the office, current systems, etc.

On the rainy day of November the 12th, we dug and dug and dug our new allotment. There were only five of us – Ambrose, Tiur, Mino, Mark and I – but we finished making a half of the bed. Hooray! We all worked hard; some endlessly picked stones and twigs, while others put horse manure on the ground.

Half way through the event, it started raining really hard. At the end we were all soaking wet! Still, Ambrose wanted to finish making the bed so that the gardening team can start planting vegetables following week ... he's always a hard worker.

We had a lot of fun at our third Language Café! My highlight was “Chinese Whispers”. We tried sentences in Japanese, Indonesian, Kinyarwanda, Gujarati and so on ... and we all got it totally wrong at the end of the circle! It was a good laugh.

We just had our third language cafe and it was great fun. Aya led us through lots of fun language games and we all had a great time together. We also made some lovely "welcome" signs in different languages to put up in our window, invented new ideograms, learned how to count from one to ten in several languages and ate some good snacks too. [img_assist|nid=158|title=Language Cafe|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=151|height=113]

Here's Aya and others making welcome signs: