Winnipeg Free Press – September 29, 2012
Hamood learned to swim — and love the water — through a female-only swimming program organized by the Canadian Muslim Women’s Institute at the Winnipeg city-owned Sherbrook Pool. The institute’s mandate includes providing programs and services for Muslim women such as Hamood in order to adapt to their new lives in Canada, explains institute president Yasmin Ali.
After six years in borrowed spaces, Ali hopes the institute’s new and spacious home in a former garment factory, Gemini Fashions on Juno Street, will allow the organization to expand its programming and continue to fund existing ones, such as the 10-week swimming program. The new location adjoins Peerless Garments, where the institute runs an employment-training program and sewing workshop for Muslim women.
