To mark International Women’s Day, SI Dundee partnered with Dundee Women’s Festival. Our guest speaker for our Open Meeting was renowned women’s rights activist and author Jasvinder Sanghera, founder of Karma Nirvana.
We were delighted to be supported by Soroptimists from other clubs including Regional President, Stella, who travelled from Dingwall to be with us. Many friends and guests joined us for Jasvinder’s presentation.
Jasvinder gave an account of the events in her life that led up to the foundation ‘Karma Nirvana’ a charity for victims of honour-based violence and forced marriage. At the age of fourteen years she was shown a photograph of a boy and told that she would marry him. Jasvinder refused as she wanted to continue in education and go to college. The frightened teenager ran away from home and by doing so was rejected by her family. Her sisters were also unhappy and in abusive marriages. In 1993 Jasvinder dedicated her life to fighting for victims of honour crimes and forced marriages.
Jasvinder has won many accolades including Woman of the Year. She is an accomplished author and guests had the opportunity to buy one of her books.
So far Karma Narvina has made little progress in Scotland; we Soroptimists hope to help progress this in the coming years .