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SI Best Practice Awards
SI Best Practice awards are the highest award that a Club can receive for one of their projects, as the best projects are chosen from all the Clubs throughout the International Organisation. In 2007, the headings under which these awards were granted were amended to reflect the new Programme Objectives.
In 2011, SI Best Practice Awards were given under three objectives. The winners from SIGBI are:
Objective 8: Promote peaceful conflict resolution, inter-cultural and inter-racial tolerance and condemn genocide and terrorism
SI Colombo won this award for their project “Helping the internally displaced due to the war”. The two main successes achieved by SI Colombo were:
a) to raise enough money to purchase a vehicle for the Sisters of Charity of Mannar, who were responsible for caring for nearly 200 over 65 year olds who had been discharged into their care from the refugee camps by the authorities. The Red Cross built huts for them, but they didn’t have any way of transporting the sick to the hospital, 8 miles away, and some of the elderly died on the way. The Sisters of Charity had previously been using 3-wheeler taxis (pictured) to transport these elderly people to hospital, and the vehicle was purchased by SI Colombo, through a donation made by SI Hamamatsu.
b) to raise funding to provide giftpacks of esential items for babies and pregnant mothers in the refugee camps in the North and East of Sri Lanka, which were assembled and delivered by members of SI Colombo.
With the ending of the War, the World Food Programme, which issued dry rations to these people, have stopped doing so. Some of these refugees have been reunited with relatives, but many are still cared for by the camps.
Objective 9: Ensure equal access to education and training for women and girls throughout their lifespan
SI Weston Super Mare won this aware for their project ”Skirting Science”.
Even now the subjects that young people choose to study and the career paths they follow appear to remain gender specific. SI Weston Super Mare recognised this and took action. For the second year in succession the club has held a ‘Skirting Science’ event that aims to encourage more young girls to consider scientific careers. Skirting Science was a one-day event with nineteen science and engineering interactive workshops hosted by scientists and engineers from all over the UK. The event was attended by two hundred and fifty thirteen to fourteen year old girls from twelve schools in North Somerset and Bristol. The interactive workshops were intended to inspire and encourage the girls to think about careers involving science that they may not have considered before. The programme report states; that on the day, there was a tremendous atmosphere, girls and teachers appeared very inspired by the exciting opportunities offered to them. This project involved a considerable amount of detailed planning and was evaluated by all who took part in the day.
SI Weston Super Mare was also the Overall SI Best Practice winner, and we offer them our heartfelt congratulations!
Objective 10: Assure women’s advancement in management, politics and decision-making
Two SIGBI Clubs received awards under this Objective:
SI Nottingham won this award for their project “Women into Work – Getting that Job”
This project began with club members working in their local comprehensive school setting up mock career interviews, to help prepare students for job and college interviews and to give them more confidence and improve interview skills. In this last year Nottingham members have been working in the local Women’s centre organising courses to enable participants to have the background material and information, along with practical help, to write a CV, construct a covering letter, complete an application form and to participate in a mock interview. This has enabled women who have been long out of work, or indeed may not have worked before to confidently enter or return to the work place. This project empowers, enthuses, encourages and enables women into work.
SI Bulawayo also won an award for their project “Talking Photos”
SI Bulawayo approached schools, churches and traditional leaders in urban and rural areas to submit names of girls from orphaned, child headed, normal/single parent families, and out of these a total of 80 girls were selected to participate in this project. The project strategy was to develop the capacity of the girl-child in the use of video, still photographs, art and story-telling in order to document the happenings in their environment, to give the girls a voice and let their pictures tell their story. Each girl was given a jotter to use as a diary, and crayons to draw, and a workshop was held with all 80 girls to review the diaries and give each girl a camera, on which they were trained during the workshop. The aim of the project was to understand the environment under which the girl child is raised in Zimbabwe, using evidence collected by them, and to identify challenges that hinder the social and economic development of girl children in Zimbabwe using stories and visual footage presented by the subjects. Success stories of girl children living in poverty would be identified.
Congratulations to all the above Clubs for receiving this award.