Connecting in Qatar

Life as an expatriate comes with multiple compressions. You leave behind family and friends in the quest to find a new home in a completely foreign environment. It consequently means days of isolation until you form a new circle of friends, which is often a difficult or long process.
This often results in anxiety, homesickness and depression, more so in women who mostly just accompany their partners. The first thing you need to do in this situation is to find friends, people like you who might be going through a similar situation or ones with whom you feel comfortable. But where do you find them?
Most people turn to online community groups. Yet, they mostly lack the physical interaction component. The other option is to find a support group in the community around you. What if it does not exist?
Then, you probably create one.
This is exactly what Carole Astin, a British expatriate, did after personally going through days of distress soon after arriving in Doha, a new setting for her. She formed a community friendship group exclusively for women.
So if you are a woman and have just arrived in Qatar or you have lived here for a while and are looking to expand your social network, you can join Carole and her friends at her Qatar Expat Women (QEW). There, you would even meet the local Qatari women who are keen on sharing with you their culture, traditions and ideas.
“First and foremost, this is a friendship group in the community. I came up with the idea of the group after I suffered with isolation when I first came to Qatar. I did not know anyone at all apart from our sponsor and his family, they were very kind to me,” recalls Carole, talking to Community, on how QEW came into existence and what made it grow.
“However I missed my family and job back in the United Kingdom a great deal. After having been here several months, I became very depressed and suffered with anxiety and had nowhere to turn. Once I started to feel better I reflected on my experience and how I had felt,” she reveals.

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