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Programme Action at Haverfordwest

Programme Action

This is simply  action taken by us to contribute or in some cases fulfil Soroptimist programme aims.

Promoting international goodwill and understanding,
Human rights and the status of women,
Economics and social development,
The environment,
Education

We aim to contribute in a meaningful way to a worthwhile project and have fun and friendship doing it.

Over the past few years we have provided, together with other clubs in our Federation, which we call SIGBI  (Soroptimist International of G Britain and Ireland),  female toilets for schools in Africa, (girls will not attend school unless there are dedicated loos for them)

We sent financial aid to Pakistan to help victims of the floods.

You may remember ‘Bras in the Bay’?    In this case we teamed up with Oxfam to provide bras which could be used for ladies in Africa to set up a small businesses (selling bras)  helping them to provide an income for themselves and their families.

Following the earthquake in Haiti, we heard that one of the doctors from Withybush Hospital was going out to help the survivors, so we made funding available to her so that she could buy vital obstetric medical supplies to take out with her.  SIGBI also sent aid to Haiti, but in this case our club wanted to make our own contribution.

We have had ‘Coffee Mornings’ and ‘At Homes’ , run ‘Treasure Hunts’, either driving or walking, we may even just stand in the Riverside Shopping Centre with posters and shake collection buckets, when we successfully raised money for the prevention of Lassa fever in Sierra Leone

An Xmas Fayre stall raised money for the Lynda Norgrove appeal.

An extremely well attended fashion show raised money for several local charities including Paul Sartori.  While the charity lunch over the past couple of years has supported Barnardos,  Homes for Heroes, Child Carers and The Parkinson Society.

A recent charity lunch contributed to a 3 year Project ‘Build a Kitchen for Mary’s Meals’ Mary’s Meals has many ways in which one can support the children in poor areas of the world

Money sent is used to purchase locally sourced food, which is cooked on site by volunteers and it is distributed to the children attending the school.This encourages them to attend, as for many of them this may be the only decent meal they get.By attending they gain the education which may enable them to  break the circle of poverty they are in.

We were delighted to raise over £7000 to totally fund the building and equipping of the kitchen, adjacent to a school in Malawi.

how much did you spend on your new kitchen?Some of us would like to go there and see the kitchen commissioned with the name of our choice over the door!

Running alongside the fund raising aspect is the Back Pack project, which we undertook a couple of years ago, and has been repeated byNarberthSchool. (The head is one of our members)

Second-hand backpacks are donated and each is filled with a selection of items required for school (pencils, ruler, paper, rubber etc)  some simple garments and flip flops, and basic toiletries.  When the backpacks are complete they are collected by  Mary’s Meals and transported to whichever school requires them.

Wales South (our region) presented this at last years Conference in Brighton  bringing it to the attention of all the other clubs in the Federation thereby hopefully increasing the number of children who receive backpacks. For some children inAfricaa bar of soap is a wonderful, aromatic thing to be treasured.

This leads me nicely to the service aspect of programme action.

We help with meals on wheels, also providing small gifts for the participants at Xmas.

We have taken part in a tree planting project in Rosebush, that also involved a discussion over a meal in the tafarn Zinc.

We recently made a collection of household items, toiletries and food which we donated to PATCH.

Supporting the Patch team

 

We support the Womens’ Refuge every year with a donation towards children’s toys at Xmas, we would like to offer service in this area, but sometimes money is the only meaningful contribution one can make.

We are also involved in two areas of awareness raising.

Trafficking and the use/abuse of alcohol by young women.

Having facilitated a successful Trafficking Forum  we had discussions with a representative from Barnardos who several of us met at another Trafficking Forum, this time  held by SI Cardiff . We are hoping with her help to take the issue into schools  by the use of plays/films in which some local children will be involved.

One of the regional projects is the one involving alcohol, and it is more difficult to get a handle on how to take this forward, possibly by the provision of questionnaires/ involvement of schools,

We are hoping to compile a list of suitable speakers such as SUDDS, PRISM, the police by providing the names and contact details of people prepared to speak and send this to various youth groups encouraging them to include one of the speakers in their year plan.

Programme action is about putting ideas into action and it is  a very exciting part of being a soroptimist particularly when you see the results of the action!