New Podcast Episode – Keeping Faith in Healthcare with Neelam Heera-Shergill
The fourth episode of the second series of WIN’s podcast – Keeping Faith: A How To Guide – is now live at https://keepingfaithahowtoguide.buzzsprout.com or on your favourite podcast platform. In each episode, WIN interviews inspiring women to explore how we keep faith – in ourselves, in each other, in a cause, or in religious faith – so you can learn how to keep faith too.
In this episode, we spoke to Neelam Heera-Shergill, Founder and CEO of Cysters UK: a community-led charity tackling inequalities in menstrual, maternal and mental healthcare through education and advocacy. Neelam reflects on how her own search for support in her struggles with chronic illness and birth trauma has led her to build safe spaces for others on similar journeys, from Cysters’ origin story to the Summer 2025 launch of the Maternity Justice Network.
What does it look like to keep faith in healthcare while still challenging systemic inequalities? Can we channel our anger into our activism without letting it consume us? And how are women building their own safe spaces to share their struggles with menstrual and maternal health?
Please note that this episode includes personal stories of miscarriage, birth trauma and health inequalities. Listen with care and access support if you need it via the links in our shownotes.
You can listen to the full episode now on https://keepingfaithahowtoguide.buzzsprout.com or on your favourite podcast platform. Make sure to subscribe, share and review to help more people find us!
Keeping Faith: A How-To Guide was created as part of Women’s Interfaith Network’s 2024-2025 Keeping Faith Programme. Read more about the programme here and be the first to hear about upcoming events and ways to get involved by signing up to our newsletter.
Previous Episodes
Keeping Faith: A New Book from Women’s Interfaith Network
In this episode, listen to extracts and short interviews with four authors from our new book of women’s writing, ‘Keeping Faith: 20 Years of Women’s Interfaith Network’: a collection of essays reflecting on how we keep faith in what matters to us in a world where faith feels hard to find. This podcast features zine artist Ioana Simion (Artizine UK), Rabbi Daisy Bogod, Reverend Helen Burnett, and Josephine Namusisi Riley from Citizens UK’s Parent Action, who share their insights on Keeping Faith in Justice, Keeping Faith in Creativity, Keeping Faith in Activism and Keeping Faith in Community.
Keeping Faith on the Frontlines with Mariia Korolchuk
In this episode, we spoke to Mariia Korolchuk, who transitioned into the humanitarian sector after she was displaced to Romania from her home in Ukraine in 2022. Mariia, who now works as Vice President of the Malva Association – a hub for the Ukranian community in Bucharest – has worked for multiple NGOS over the last 3 years, with a particular focus on tackling gender-based violence and empowering women and girls. This is a raw, moving discussion of the realities of long-term conflict and displacement, as well as how women working on the frontlines of these crises continue to keep faith together.
Keeping Faith in Creativity with Ada Jusic
In this episode, we spoke to multi-disciplinary artist Ada Jusic, the illustrator behind the graphic novel The Power of Welcome: bringing to life her own journey from Bosnia to the UK as a young child alongside the stories of her co-authors from Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine. We discuss the importance of age-appropriate conversations about migration with children and young people in a world of widespread misinformation, as well as how she brings her life-long passion for artistic self-expression into the community.
Each Other with Paulina Tamborrel (Citizens UK)
In the last episode of the first series of Keeping Faith: A How To Guide, we spoke to Community Organiser Paulina Tamborrel, Head of Migrant and Refugee Organising at Citizens UK and Trustee at arts non-profit Creating Ground. Our conversation ranged from the lasting legacy of the Summer 2024 riots, how Paulina’s own migration journey shapes her approach as an organiser and what it means to ‘keep faith’ as someone working with communities now bearing the brunt of divisive rhetoric.
Keeping Faith Together with Deputy Mayor Dr. Debbie Weekes Bernard
In a special episode for International Women’s Day, we spoke to London’s Deputy Mayor for Communities and Social Justice Dr. Debbie Weekes-Bernard, who shares her journey from the charity sector to City Hall, her first-hand experience of how women are driving interfaith dialogue in the capital, and what it means to ‘keep faith’ amidst the rise of the far-right.
Keeping Faith in The Future with Dianne Danquah
In this episode, we spoke to Dianne Danquah – a Young Equality Campaigner with The Equality Trust and one of the voices behind their Reconstructing the Social Contract project – who shares her journey into activism, what meaningful representation means to her, and how she finds a way to keep faith in the future when faith feels hard to find.
Full Transcript
Maeve Carlin:
Welcome to Keeping Faith: A How To Guide, a new podcast from Women’s Interfaith Network exploring how women keep faith, in ourselves, in each other, in a cause, or in religious faith, so you can learn how to keep faith too.
I’m your host, Maeve Carlin, and today we’re speaking to Neelam Heera-Shergill – founder and CEO of Cysters, a community-led charity tackling systemic inequalities in menstrual and maternal healthcare, through education, advocacy and amplifying grassroots voices.
Neelam shares how she turned her own experiences with PCOS and Endometriosis into a community and a resource for others like her, discovering the power of solidarity and collective advocacy along the way.
We explore what it means to keep faith in a healthcare system where maternal and menstrual healthcare often feel like an afterthought, how we can evolve our rage at the world’s injustices into something more grounded and sustainable, and how the Sikh principle of sarbat da bhala – for the good of everyone – has shaped her ethos at Cysters.
This episode touches on several topics that might be painful for some listeners, including miscarriage, birth trauma and health inequalities, so please listen with care.
If you’re still with us, let’s jump into our conversation with Neelam Heera-Shergill.
Well Neelam, welcome to the podcast.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Thank you for having me. It’s um, it’s been a long time coming in the background, hasn’t it?
Maeve Carlin: Yeah, it’s great that we’re finally chatting and I’m really excited about this conversation. It’s something that’s very important to a lot of us at WIN, I think.
You are the CEO of Cysters, a grassroots charity, amplifying marginalized voices, tackling inequalities in menstrual, maternal and menopausal health.
I know Cysters was born partly out of your own journey with PCOS and endometriosis, but can you share what you were seeing in your community in the struggles of women around you that showed you there was a real need for a community led response like this?
Neelam Heera-Shergill: So the truth is that’s not how Cysters came about in that I noticed a big gap and wanted to fill said gap.
I think it really came from a place of rage, if I’m honest. I was fed up of having to constantly explain my symptoms, my pain, and I wanted to, I guess, find people that had had similar experiences. So maybe it was a case of maybe I need to say something different. Maybe I should speak in a different way. Maybe I need a special doctor that knows all of these things.
And so I guess it came from a place of trying to find other people like me, so naturally I didn’t realize that was a gap. It was just a longing to find a community that understood. ‘Cause it really is isolating, living with, you know, many of these conditions. They have a knock-on impact on, you know, your life generally.
So what really became quickly very clear was it’s not a unique experience, and what I find really sad is there are tons of reports out there under the sort of banner of menstrual/maternal health inequalities. There’s loads of research that all ultimately I feel says: listen to women, refer women and get women care. I feel like that, that they’re the three things that come out of most reports.
And so it wasn’t unique and I felt constantly that this story, time and time again, is not changing. And whilst, you know, we know in the global majority or what’s often known as the ethnic minority, we know in those communities that the health inequality gap only widens. I find it really interesting that regardless the story is still the same throughout.
And this is what I wanted to do is, is find that space, find that community. And it wasn’t even tackling policy in healthcare together. It was first just being at peace with – at that point I hadn’t got all my diagnoses – but being at peace with, I’m not the only one who gets this feeling, gets this level of pain, or gets this dismissal constantly.
But I found that, you know, a lot of us were just experiencing severe, debilitating pain actually and just being constantly dismissed. But we didn’t really have the language for it from a community perspective because we don’t, as particularly as women, we don’t share that very often. We don’t say we’re in pain and we’re struggling. We need time off, or we need reasonable adjustments, or we just need to be with other people that get it. And so that’s where this all really came from.
Maeve Carlin: Yeah. Isn’t that so powerful how you’re looking for something for yourself?
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: And in the process you find all these other women who’ve been looking for the same thing as you.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Mm-hmm.
Maeve Carlin: And I had the same experience when I went through pain clinic, I insisted on an all women pain clinic because I felt that that experience of the gender pain gap was such
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: essential part of my experience that I couldn’t talk about my pain without talking about that experience of being ignored or being dismissed.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: And I needed to be in a room with people who’d shared that.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Mm-hmm.
Maeve Carlin: And because I insisted, that space had to be made. I know I was not the only one who benefited from it.
And it often feels like women’s health, gynaecological health, or menstrual health are treated as an afterthought. There’s healthcare and then there’s women’s healthcare or menstrual healthcare, even though we’re talking about issues that affect half the population.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: How have you seen that in your work with Cysters and what impact do you think it has?
Neelam Heera-Shergill: I think what’s interesting is that we see women’s health as a niche area, but actually it’s a majority experience quite often. And we know, things like the maternity services, that we know women are gonna go through that service and yet feels like it’s a bit of an afterthought service.
But we’re seeing as well that -, or we’re not even seeing, I think it’s been called out more – that historically, um, a lot of these structures, institutions, research policy, even clinical research has actually been made with white males in mind. So it was never about us in the first place. It was never made for us. And so is there any wonder then that we never fit into that because it was never made with us in mind.
So I think trying to fix a system that historically has never included us is very difficult and such a system – if we look at, for example, like the NHS as an institution – it’s massive. You are not gonna be able to fix that entirely within a few years. You almost need to dismantle the whole thing and start from scratch. Now we know we’re not gonna be able to do that. So what we have to do is almost train up the next generation and start plugging the gaps from within and changing it from within, which is really difficult within in itself as well.
And I think when we talk about how things are left as an afterthought, we see that level of impact and inequality getting wider when you look at this through an intersectional lens as well, which often people don’t. So if you’re looking at somebody who’s a person of colour, a migrant, disabled, working class, living under the poverty line, trans, non-binary, that gap is getting wider and wider and wider.
So what we try to do at Cysters, if we centre the most marginalized person in a room, then actually that raises a bar for everybody in that room as well. And the best example I can give of that is drop curbs. So drop curbs were made for disabled people in mind. Actually, it benefits so many more people. It benefits me as a new mom with my pram, it benefits me there. It benefits people that struggle to walk generally. It benefits young children.
So actually, this is why I always say if we centre the most marginalized person to get it right for them, we actually get it right for everybody. But that’s not what the system does very often. It’s not very great at doing that. We see that a lot of the responses that people want to make about the community are actually, those answers are in the community, just no one’s speaking to us directly. So what we try and do is, is work with people who get the work, who want to make a difference, but invite them to the spaces that we occupy and actually see it for themselves. Because I think the work that we do is not something that you can really accurately capture on a report or in a picture. I think you have to see and feel what we bring to the table as an organization.
You know, I know everyone likes to do a survey at the end of the event ever. How did you feel when you came and how did you feel when you left? That’s, it’ll never be the same as being in that space and building it from within. And I think that’s where we try and change things because I really recognize that I cannot actually change policy overnight.
Cysters has been going 11 years now. And it’s only this year that I’ve actually come into a CEO role and a paid role, two days a week paid. That’s taken a long time because again, even funders are seeing this work as an afterthought.
Maeve Carlin: Absolutely.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: So when we constantly keep dismissing this, we are letting the most marginalized people down.
Um, but I really hope, with having that little extra capacity and that trust in us, that we can actually move forward as an organization. But most importantly, when we’re moving forward, we’re taking people with us.
Maeve Carlin: Yeah, I resonated with so much of what you said there and particularly the point about accessible design.
I mean, you can thank the disabled community for your audio books and for, you know, so many things that
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: People use every day and don’t think about.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: Accessible design is inclusive design for everybody.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: It is. I mean, disability justice actually helps everybody, and so it frustrates me that people who benefit from it aren’t the people that are shouting about it.
Maeve Carlin: Absolutely. Yeah.
You’ve spoken there about your ange. And when you were talking about starting Cysters as well you spoke about rage. And how you’ve been able to sort of transform that now into this really positive force through Cysters and that really resonated with me as a chronically ill person.
I felt a lot of rage, but also fear and grief. That if I’ve struggled as much as I have to access healthcare, how many women or other marginalized genders are there who don’t look like me or speak the same language as me or practice the same faith as me who are just suffering maybe without even knowing that help is out there?
So given that rage and that fear and that grief, how do you think we can keep faith in these healthcare systems that we rely on but which so often let us down?
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Faith is a really interesting one because there’s lots of different angles you can come at this from, you can come from like your actual faith practice. But what I will say is anger absolutely has a place here. And I think sometimes we are told we’re not allowed to be angry. We’re told to be grateful.
Particularly when I work with some of our migrant women and we ask them about their experiences and why they never said anything. They’re like, “We’re, you know, visitors to this country. We’re just grateful to be here. We don’t wanna rock the boat.” And we really have to speak on this: the political and racial tension in the UK plays a real big part in that.
So if you are already a person of colour or if you are an ally to a person of color or any of those marginalizations, you already feel like you don’t belong. So you don’t wanna rock the boat. And I think anger is important here. I guess it’s how we use our anger.
I will be honest. I was, what, in my twenties when I started Cysters, I probably burnt more bridges in my first year than ever trying to create, because I was angry. I hadn’t got my endo diagnosis at that point. It was just PCOS. I just knew for me it stripped away the career that I wanted. I wanted to become a solicitor. You know, I had this thing in my head I was gonna be like in suits, so I was gonna live at the Mailbox, one of those bougie apartments. I was gonna work for a really cool law firm. I just would’ve ticked all the boxes of a good Indian girl.
Obviously, none of that happened because this illness really took it away from me, right? And so that anger held me through to getting Cysters where it was, but that wasn’t enough to keep it going ’cause it wasn’t sustainable. It’s not sustainable for my body, it’s not sustainable for the community. It’s not sustainable to actually create relationships with people that are actually rooted in care and compassion. Because I did not feel care and compassion at the time, and it’s not easy to admit that. But I was also a patient, not just Neelam as CEO or Neelam a founder. I was also a patient who was let down.
So. I think hearing everyone’s stuff was also filling my rage as well. However, I think as I, and I did, you know, I had a lot of counseling. I think it became, from being trauma led to trauma informed. That’s not language I knew at the time when I was starting Cysters. That’s things that I’ve learned, unlearnt along the way.
So I think the shift really happened with that, because also I realized that using that rage has got me where I need to be, but it will never be a sustainable, trusted organization within the wider work if I hold onto this rage and don’t channel it in a way that’s actually something that people can work with. ‘Cause let’s be honest, who wants to work with a, like an angry Punjabi girl? Nobody. And I feel more at peace with myself day to day, now that I’ve had that, that support.
But I think that’s something that I can pass on to other people that come through Cysters, is we can do something with this rage. And I think things like counselling and things are not something that we speak about often. You might have every mental health campaign going out. They’re all over TikTok, social media, Instagram. But actually, do we really talk about to our friends? Like “Are you having counselling? Yeah, I’m having counselling.” And I’m okay to say “Yes. I’m, you know, I’m getting that help” because I think this work is heavy. You know, meeting people where they are is heavy work and I think it’s important that we recognize that for ourselves and give us that grace. We need to give each other grace and ourselves that grace.
So with that, that’s helped me keep faith in the healthcare system because I believe truly that no system, no institution, no person, including myself, is anything but flawed in some way.
So it means that there’s space for growth and change. So if I know that it’s flawed and I know that there’s people in there willing to change it, it means that that, that something can happen and we can work towards something better for the future. So I think the faith comes from the hope that things are gonna change in the future, and I think we’re starting to slowly shift, see a shift. I’m not saying it’s perfect ’cause it’s not. But we are seeing clinicians, researchers, academic stakeholders wanting to speak to us and wanting to be involved in us.
So I think I’ve really learned along the way that whilst I’ve been angry at the system, that the system holds incredible people within there, who are fighting to make a difference, who genuinely want to do better. And I think as long as we’ve got those people that we can hold on to, we can hold those two truths: that you can be angry at a system, you can be let down by a system, but you can also have faith that that person and that system will get better as well.
So I really believe that if we bring this experience to the table and speak as honestly as we, me and you are today, that we can build by designing something better.
Maeve Carlin: I think that’s so important that, you know, people in the charity sector or doing campaigning work or activist work, that we hold space with and for each other as well in the emotional or mental load of doing some of this work or having these conversations.
I mean, you are a lot more frontline than we are, for example, at WIN. But we need to take care of each other. Or we cannot keep doing it. That’s just…
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: A fact.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: I think that’s why, um, so it’s taken me like 10, 11 years to realize this, but I really went in with this fire in me that I’m gonna tell policy holders these are the problems and they will just change things.You know, how naive was that? ‘Cause that’s not gonna happen. A
nd, um, things that I’ve taken for granted, like understanding the way that our community works and I’m currently always learning because they always surprise me because you can never speak for a whole community. You can only steward and hold that space, but you, you will never be the speaker of that community. And I will never take that away from them.
But actually the things that we can change tomorrow is how we show up for each other, how we hold community, and how we hold space for each other. And how we can be kind and more compassionate towards each other. They’re the things that you can do tomorrow, but I can’t change things that are material in terms of policy tomorrow.
And so we work at the community level first and foremost. ‘Cause they’re the things we have most control over.
Maeve Carlin: And you know, I’m sure this will be your experience as well as mine, but the support of other chronically ill and disabled people is like one of the most magical supportive resources out there. It is like a transformative thing.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: And you know, we create change in the way that we show up for each other as much as in the change that happens beyond and outside us, I think.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah, definitely. And I think sometimes we don’t see the change that we’ve created. I made the mistake actually of an event yesterday saying that, you know, we are not a very big organization, which we’re not. We, you know, we are nowhere as big as some of the big, large charities in women’s health. Of course we’re not.
And I said something about “we’re, you know, we’re not as transformative as some of the, you know, interventions you’re seeing in women’s health.” And this guy said to me, he goes, “actually, what I’ve heard you’ve done and you do, It’s much more than some of the larger groups that I’ve ever spoken with”, and I was really taken back by that. ‘Cause what we see as quite natural to do is something that’s quite transformative to others. So I think sometimes we surprise ourselves.
Maeve Carlin: Yeah. The, the power of the grassroots is, is something to hold onto, isn’t it?
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: And you touched on maternal healthcare earlier in our conversation.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: And that’s one area where we’re seeing really frightening health inequalities.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: At the moment. You founded the Maternity Justice Network in May 2025. How did that group come about and what are your hopes for the network going forward?
Neelam Heera-Shergill: So I think it also came from a place of, um, I had had my daughter. So I went through a really difficult patch of trying to conceive then, you know, miscarriages before we had my daughter. My birth journey was horrific. No one knew I was pregnant. I’ve kept her a very big secret until the last minute because, you know, experiencing miscarriages, telling people, then telling people that you’re not pregnant anymore. Not something that I wanna keep going through, but, um I think I was so unsure of myself about, well, what do I do now? I’m on maternity and I just, I think it was almost a trauma response to my birth journey and my actual birth itself, which was traumatic.
I ended up with a CAT one C-section, which I knew was gonna happen because I kept saying that I was ill, things weren’t right. And this is somebody in the system as well that actually knows what they’re talking about and knows some of the people on the ward as well, and I had to name drop like crazy to be seen. And I think it does make me think like somebody who didn’t have that privilege that I had to be able to name drop someone. I wonder what their birth journey would’ve been like. Mine was not nice at all, and I think it really made it harder for me at the beginning of my birth. To be like, I was a very anxious mom. I still am actually an anxious mom. But I was a very anxious mom like I was really scared about who held my daughter. I struggled to hold her because I was like, what if I drop her? What if I… and it was all based on everything that happened at the hospital.
Um, and so the Maternity Justice network came because there’s so many great people that reached out and supported me, because actually in the West Midlands, we might have actually some of the worst maternity outcomes. We also have some of the most amazing organizations doing great work, whether it’s a doula, whether it’s, um Maternity Voices Partnership or um, Black Mamas’ Birthing Village. There are some amazing organizations that do not get the space that they deserve. I’m tired of people doing things in silo and I am tired of hearing about this stuff.
So I wanted to pull everyone in a room together to be like, right, what can we do better? What can we do together? Even if it means other people make relationships and do their own piece of research, if they connect with someone. It was a space to just grow a network where everyone can connect with each other. My husband and my daughter were both there as well, and it was like a really hot day and she was too hot. She was fed up by the end of it. But I think it’s also important that, you know, we have these spaces where we can bring our children as well.
Maeve Carlin: Mm-hmm.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Or that they’re accessible to new moms as well in this space, as well as being mindful of people that may have gone through grief and loss.
And I really want it to grow into its own really. And where we’ve really struggled: we did have, like Birmingham City Council join us on the day. I’ve since been told that the Birmingham City Council reps have actually left their roles now, which is really disappointing ’cause we’ve not been like passed on to anyone else.
But I really wanted that to be funded so that we could create this safe space so that these sort of meetings could happen more regularly, that people could meet each other, talk to each other, update us on what are you doing in this space right now. What’s happening? Like, where can we amplify your voice? Where can you amplify us?
Because I really think, it’s a real colonized approach to, to working, this working in silo is literally divide and conquer. So I want to break against that and do something in togetherness. Unfortunately, as with everything in Cysters, it’s, it’s unfunded, so it is literally going on volunteer and manpower, which is really difficult to keep it sustainable.
So I’m really hopeful that that is something that becomes sustainable as a space to bring people together, whether it’s grassroots lived experience at the table too and every organization that is doing anything around maternity or birth work has that space to reconnect and do something in that space as well. I think that’s really important.
Maeve Carlin: And we know that, uh, the voluntary and community sector works better
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Yeah.
Maeve Carlin: When people can talk to each other and people can come together, find spaces for collaboration. Hear each other. Yeah. Support each other. We know that. But it is something that seems to be difficult to A) fund as, as you were saying and B), that seems to be quite easy to defund.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Very much so. Yeah, it really does. Um, but collective advocacy, I think is really important. And I think if you look at the successful protests that we’ve seen in the UK over the years have actually been done when collectively we come together and shout about things. But everybody who’s working in this space is time poor, resource poor.
It shouldn’t be something this difficult to get a group of people who are passionate about this work together. Yet the systems around us are not willing to support that work. And that, and I’m just gonna call it as it is, like you could do better if you funded this.
Maeve Carlin: Mm-hmm.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: But you’re not going to, so yeah, we will not see health inequality gaps getting shorter if we don’t actually put our money where our mouth is.
Maeve Carlin: And that point you made earlier of, you know, if it’s like this for me, what is the worst-case scenario? I mean, it’s a sickening feeling and it shouldn’t be like that. And no new parent should have to feel like that. So thank you for sharing that part of your story with us.
I’ve heard you speak about your Sikh faith and the idea of seva or selfless service as a kind of driving force behind your advocacy, but I’m sure there have been times where your faith in this work has been rocked by the challenges that come with it, whether it’s dealing with policy makers or people in our own communities who don’t want these conversations out in the open.
Can you share with us how you keep faith in those moments?
Neelam Heera-Shergill: So my journey with my faith has been really interesting. I think I’ve thrown myself at faith. I’ve held back from it. I’ve hated it and fallen in and out of love with it sometimes. I think Cysters, one thing that I’m always gonna be proud of, we’re grounded in something that I learned through Sikhi [which] is sarbat da bhala, which is “for the good of everybody”. And I think I will always be happy with what we do as an organization, as, as long as we stick to that. So we’re not a Sikh organization. I am obviously Sikh by background. I’m still on a, a learning unlearning journey around faith generally.
So I would never say that we’re a Sikh-led organization. There’s values that I have because of my faith that have grounded us. And sarbat da bhala is part of that. Um, I don’t think I’m knowledgeable enough in Sikhi to be able to sort of attach that to all my work, but I get to work with amazing individuals who are rooted in faith much more devoutly than me, who I can really lean into.
And, and sometimes I have questions related to, you know, why? Like, what is this, what’s, why is this happening? And I think that’s what you need is open compassionate conversations. The reason actually we called my daughter Dea is because it means compassion and that’s a real big pillar of Sikhi. And I think these are things that we want to instil around us, but we don’t have to shout about it as much as saying that we are a Sikh-led organization.
And yes, there’s been times that my faith has been rocked and particularly when we’re doing stuff particularly for Sikh communities or reaching out to Sikh communities, I can get a lot of pushback, because of our wider work doesn’t always sit with them because they feel like it’s maybe hypersexualized or they feel like it’s pushing a boundary or “we don’t talk about these things”. Because our work talks about things like sex, healthy relationships. Um, and those are things people don’t wanna admit to actually talking about or doing. But we’re all here because of that.
So it’s a conversation for me about safeguarding and safety and also not placing a woman’s virtue on her virginity and things like that. So yes, there’s been times that my faith has really been rocked, but I think actually it’s more of an issue from a community perspective around culture and what they see as acceptable, not acceptable.
And really, to name it, misogyny and patriarchy are actually the biggest reasons behind it. It is not about the faith, it is actually about some of the men in this conversation behind it and, and actually women, because women carry internalized misogyny themselves too.
Maeve Carlin: oO course.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: And they can uphold part patriarchy in ways that I probably didn’t realize until the last few years. And I think it’s difficult to work with communities that don’t want to hear it, but also I don’t have to prove or convince anyone of this work. I mean, the stats speak for itself. The work is there and you are not going to stop people having sexual intercourse. You’re not.
Maeve Carlin: Exactly. Especially not if you want them to have babies,.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: Right? So we can’t just wait for a wedding date and be like, right, the stork is now here.
These conversations need to be had. And if it means that I am the black sheep of the community, if I’m the bad girl of the community for having them, then so be it. Because I really think with my faith with God, I really don’t think that’s something that he’s gonna be upset about. I think there’s bigger things that are happening in our community. I think hiding things like sexual abuse or child sexual exploitation are probably much worse than me talking about healthy relationships, sex and consent.
And so keeping faith in those moments is having to lean into the people in the community that have had my back in these spaces. And they are some amazing people who have done that with me and I have really stayed within the sanghat because they’ve created that space for me and with me.
Maeve Carlin: That’s so beautiful. And as you say, these insidious forces of patriarchy and misogyny and abuse, they exist in every community, every faith, every culture.
And, you know, we’re all people. We bring our complicated relationships with faith and identity to the work we do. And that’s part of the work we do. And talking about it is part of talking about the work.
Well Neelam I have one last question, which is there may well be someone listening who doesn’t know how to start a conversation about their health, whether it’s with their family or their doctor, or even with themselves.
Maybe they feel they don’t have the right language, or they’re worried about what people will think. What would you say to that person?
Neelam Heera-Shergill: So the first thing I would say is, ’cause a lot of people who are in that space are thinking, “Oh, it’s not that deep. Oh, it happens to everyone. Maybe I was just unlucky.” I would first by start saying, your experience is valid and it matters. And there is a space for you at Cysters, whether how big or small you think that experience is. This table is big enough for everybody. There’s cha, tea, biscuits, chocolates, you name it. We’re literally there for you in that space.
It’s really easy, particularly when you have things like around you that tell you that being a woman, even though we do work with our trans and non-binary communities, but being a woman, you are supposed to be in pain during things like your periods. Or, you know, hormones are real and you know you’re gonna be upset here and there, but you know, if, if it’s debilitating and it’s too much. That space is there for you.
And I think we are raised in cultures, regardless of whether you’re South Asian or not, but where certain parts of our bodies, certain health issues, they’re not discussed. Disability isn’t really discussed. And so it’s really normal to feel like you don’t have that language to sort of say how you really feel or to feel like there isn’t language that reflects how you feel as well.
So starting conversations, it doesn’t have to be perfect if you just wanna get in touch with it and say “something just doesn’t feel right and I just wanna belong somewhere”, we are your space for that then. And we are just here for a chat. Like it doesn’t have to be a big thing that we have to centre everything around you and, you know, platform you and talk about your experience publicly. That’s not something… we’re not here to trauma porn. We’re just here for you. And that’s what I think community is really about.
And even if you are struggling to speak to a doctor, there’s things you can do. You can write your notes down. I will be really honest. I’m terrible at speaking to the doctor about my journey.You would think as a CEO of an organization doing this, I would have my stuff together. I don’t, because there’s something about it and I haven’t quite put my finger on it yet, that makes me nervous.
Maeve Carlin: Mm-hmm.
Neelam Heera-Shergill: And I already feel before I’ve walked through the door, as an inconvenience, as many people probably feel. ‘Cause you’ve been battling the whole of the UK at eight o’clock in the morning trying to get that like appointment. So you already feel like an inconvenience.
So I would say everything that you’re feeling is valid. You can hold those two truths. And the most important thing is knowing that you’re, you’re absolutely not alone. You don’t need to be surrounded by people to know that, because actually every report on women’s health says the same thing. Or you can be in spaces like us where you will absolutely be welcome with open arms.
Maeve Carlin: Yeah, I, our listeners may have heard me laughing in places there, and that was from relating so much so you are absolutely not alone.
And that’s something that we can hold onto. Thank you, Neelam. Yeah.
We are so grateful to Neelam for sharing her story with us and for the reminder that, no matter how isolating it might feel when you’re worrying about your health, you are far from alone. If you have been impacted by any of the issues we’ve discussed in this episode, please reach out for support via the links in our shownotes, where you can also find out more about Neelam’s work and how to get involved with Cysters or the Maternity Justice Network.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Keeping Faith: A How To Guide. Subscribe now on your podcast app to be the first to hear about our upcoming episodes, and please leave a review or share with a friend to help more people find us. To find out more about the podcast, the next phase of the Keeping Faith Programme, or to get involved with the Women’s Interfaith Network, you can follow the links in our episode notes or go to www.wominet.org.uk. Until next time, Keep Faith!
Keeping Faith: A How-To Guide was created by Women’s Interfaith Network. The podcast is co-produced by me, Maeve Carlin, and Adam Brichto. Our executive producer is Lady Gilda Levy. Theme music was composed by Jamie Payne and our logo was designed by Jasey Finesilver. Additional Support from Tara Corry.