International Evening – Meru Garden Project update
Cannock and Stafford Soroptimists and their guests were delighted on 9th October to welcome Patricia Gatherum to celebrate their International Evening. Patricia had travelled from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne to be with them. She is the coordinator for the project that Soroptimist International of Great Britain and Ireland (SIGBI) have been supporting for the last three years in the Meru district of Kenya and had recently returned from a study tour, so was able to tell everyone at firsthand how the project was progressing. Working with the charity child.org and a local charity called CIFORD the project set out to provide seeds, tools and encouragement to enable women in that impoverished rural area of Kenya to create gardens to support themselves and their families and to provide surplus food to sell in their local market. Forty highly motivated women were chosen to undertake the gardening. They were also