Chalte Chalte is literally translated as walking walking, and is also the name of a famous Hindi film. This helped inspire a number of women to come and join the walking group. We were also joined by staff and people who use the BlueSCI Social and Cultural Inclusion service.

We went on 4 led walks that took us to Salford Quays, Seymour, Hullard and Longford Parks and the former GMB College which is soon to be the largest Muslim heritage centre in the country.

After the 4 week programme of led walks, the group decided that they wanted to continue and enjoy the benefits from regular walking. Every Wednesday since October the Chalte Chalte group have continued to go out walking with the help of Elaine, a Get Walking volunteer. At the end of February, Trafford’s STRIDE walking scheme will train some of the ladies to become volunteer walk leaders so that they can run the walking group themselves.

One of the ladies from the walking group enthusiastically told me, “This group is great, I have met new people and enjoyed getting out of the house. I have even started to notice that I don’t need my inhaler so much”.

Jen worked closely with Alya Rafiq and Yasmine Dar from the South Asian Mental Health Team to make sure that the group was widely promoted within the local community and that the ladies were supported and encouraged to take part.

Alya told us, “I’ve really enjoyed working with Get Walking, they provided all the publicity material and designed and led all the routes. Every week we had fresh fruit and bottles of water and Jen and the volunteers made every session fun and informative”.