The vision for beginning an Allotment Project at Eden House came from SI Bristol brainstorming how they could best respond to 2015 being Bristol’s year as European Green Capital. A piece of land approximately 20ft by 10ft was identified as ideal for an allotment. It is an Eden House allotment – volunteers from SI Bristol work under the Client Lead’s direction and garden by way of support to the Clients. Week 1 – 7 April 2015 Four members of SI Bristol met with Penny, the Client Lead. Sue Oakey, a garden and allotment expert also came to advise on how best to plan the allotment and to give other useful gardening tips. The vision was to have a seated area under a tree planted with flowers, where Clients could sit and chat with their workers in confidence as well as plenty of fruit and vegetables that the women

STOP PRESS SUCCESS STORY! Bristol Soroptimists have raised enough money through their Spend a Penny Campaign to fund the building of a whole school toilet block in Muyebe – an extremely poor rural village in Uganda. We’ve helped young girls, like Bridget below, be able to look forward to a much healthier future and with no disruption to their education. Find out more about Toilet Twinning at www.toilettwinning.org SI Bristol – Spend a Penny Campaign Aim:   By donating a coin or two every time we go to the loo, to raise enough funds to become a toilet twinned Soroptimist group in Bristol. What does this mean? By sponsoring and twinning a toilet (or toilet block) in a developing country, we’ll be providing basic sanitation, fresh water and hygiene education to a family or community who, at present, have none. Why support toilet twinning?   Lack of

Learning in Lima & the Women’s Initiative                                                             SI Bristol have been supporting the Learning in Lima project since its inception in 2005. Sylva, a former member of SI Bristol, set up an infants school in Lima after seeing so many children going without basic education. We are proud to support Sylva in her work, through regular fundraising activities and she often pays us a visit when in the UK to keep us updated on the school’s progress. Recently we have contributed to funds to pay for a minibus for the school to assist them in day trips out. The school also supports the children’s mothers by offering them work helping out at the school providing an important community

2015 – Eden House Garden Project SI Bristol have been working with Eden House Women’s Centre, as part of Bristol’s 2015 European Green Capital initiative. In March 2015, we teamed up with Eden House (a rehabilitative project for females at risk of offending behaviour) to help one of their Client Lead’s start a gardening project that will directly benefit the women who use the service. The project was launched on the 7th April with a talk by Sue Oakey, a prominent local Garden Designer, who advised us on garden planning and what plants to grow in the space available. Never ones to shy away from hard work, SI Bristol started digging and planting the following week! Now, a small herb garden has been planted alongside vegetables and fruit. The aim of the project is to grow food for the women to cook in their healthy