Welcome to Soroptimist International of Richmond and Dales

Welcome to the SI Richmond and Dales website

We are a very active, friendly club and if you are interested in becoming a member, you can be sure of a welcome at one of our meetings. If you would like to explore membership please contact our membership officers on 01325-377291 or 01748-824240.

We are women, from different professions and backgrounds but all of us have a social conscience, which is why we joined Soroptimist International, a worldwide organisation working through service projects to advance human rights and the status of women. We are committed to a world where women and girls together achieve their individual and collective potential, realise aspirations and have an equal voice in creating strong and peaceful communities worldwide.

Our service projects are called programme action. Currently we are:

•   Raising funds to train a nurse in a village hospital in Tanzania. We have also bought solar panels for the hospital so that they now have electricity.

•   Supporting our sister Soroptimists in Zimbabwe who are working under difficult circumstances.

•    Supporting Rug Aid, based in Reeth, which teaches blind people in The Gambia to make rugs which they can sell to support themselves.

•   Fundraising for local domestic abuse services and carrying out a quarterly awareness-raising campaign in our area.

•   Raising funds for our local girls’ football team.

Programme action is the reason for becoming a Soroptimist. Here at SI Richmond and Dales we are proud of what we achieve through programme action, and indeed we have recently won an award within the Yorkshire region for one of our projects. However, we are also proud of the friendship and support and the social activities which all thrive in our club.

If you feel you have energy, skills and commitment which you could use to benefit other women throughout the world, we would love to hear from you.

Chris Bowran (pictured above)

Club president