Zehra Haq

Zehra Haq came to Bristol, to Barton Hill, [ in 1977] because her in-laws lived in Barton Hill, Avonvale Road. She knew a lot about the area, because in away she spent a lot of my years in this area.

Zehra Haq founded Dhek Bhal, in 1986. Dhek Bhal is a women’s group primarily for South Asian women in Bristol. The group still flourishing, is based in Barton Hill, Bristol a 19th century white working class area which was seriously disrupted by post-war high rise Council housing development.

The related extracts from an interview with Zehra Haq, created  for the EPE project, illustrate the way government funding in the 1980’s onward has enabled South Asian women to finance their own self help organizations independently of communal male control. Her testimony also sheds some light on low pay suffered by immigrant labour, the experience of women immigrants and their impact on the wider community.