OVERALL SIGBI PROGRAMME AWARD WINNER FOR 2013
SI Thames Valley for their Kori Project
The main aim is to empower, enable and educate women and girls in Kori Chiefdom, Sierra Leone.
They aim to transform the lives of women and girls by encouraging them to take part in agriculture and education relating to health and welfare. They work with volunteers who are dedicated in supporting Kori; they help to raise funds for shipping, buying seeds and forming tools, paying school fees for girls, donating medical/hospital stuff etc.
They also speak out for vulnerable girls. Rose Moriba Simbo who is the founder and managing Director of the organisation (and a member of SI Thames Valley) is a tireless campaigner for the eradication of female genital mutilation (FGM). As a midwife, she has first hand knowledge of the long term impact of FGM in all its forms. During her visits to Kori Chiefdom, she tries to persuade young girls and their mothers that FGM is both dangerous and debilitating. She hopes to encourage her community to adopt other ways to celebrate their daughters coming of age.
Their main aim for the next few years is to build a public library in Taiama (The Sandy Raffan Memorial Library) this will be first of its kind in the District. Sandy was the late husband of Kori Trustee (and SI Thames Valley member) Johanna Raffan, MBE.
For more information on this project, please visit the website.
SIGBI PROGRAMME AWARD – LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
SI BARNSTAPLE – Knickers for Knowledge
The SIGBI Programme Award 2013 in the area of Learning Opportunities goes to SI Barnstaple for their Knickers for Knowledge Project. The club has started a new initiative which links with their international goals to improve the lives and status of women and girls through education, empowerment and enabling opportunities. The project ‘Knickers for Knowledge’ a girls right to education in Africa, will involve partnership working with their friendship link club, SI Bulawayo in Zimbabwe.
According to all available evidence, high school attendance in sub Saharan Africa is as low as 25% in some of the poor rural areas, with girls particularly marginalised. One of the key issues is the lack of sanitary wear, poor sanitation facilities and lack of water for hand washing. A girl absent from school due to menstruation could lose 24 weeks out of a possible 144 weeks of learning over a four-year period. Following discussion with the Bulawayo club, financial support seems the most appropriate solution. All the money raised will go direct to the Bulawayo club, who will purchase sanitary protection locally and distribute this to those rural schools in most need. Money passed to a Bulawayo member at the Federation Conference in Belfast enabled the club to supply all the girls of Chithekani Primary School, in an extremely deprived area, with knickers on International Women’s Day. It costs only £8 to provide a year’s supply of sanitary towels and a pair of knickers. We can obtain 50p per kilo for clean clothing, bedding and curtains.
SIGBI PROGRAMME AWARD – VIOLENCE & CONFLICT RESOLUTION
SI THAMES VALLEY – Kori FGM Project
Rose Moriba Simbo
SIGBI PROGRAMME AWARD – ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
SI THAMES VALLEY – Kori Women’s Development Project
SIGBI PROGRAMME AWARD – FOOD SECURITY & HEALTHCARE
SI NORTHERN IRELAND – Ethiopian Day Centre for Elderly Ladies Project
Mums for Mums helps young single mothers in Mekelle, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia to find the means to support themselves and their families by providing courses to give training and work experience in sewing, woodwork and knitting skills.
Mums for Mums also provide counsellors for a door-to-door campaign against HIV/AIDS.
Three Club members from SI Enniskillen took the opportunity to meet Tebereh Wolde-Gabriel, founder of Mums for Mums in Mekelle, Ethiopia, when SI Enniskillen & District hosted an open evening in the Killyhevin Hotel, Enniskillen.
All attending were spell-bound as Tebereh recounted how she had come to identify the need for and subsequently establish, grow and maintain the Mums for Mums project. While out walking, Tebereh had noticed a growing number of young women with babies or small children forced to beg on the street for money. Rather than ignoring these young women she made it her business to find out how they came to be in these circumstances, then set about establishing a means of getting them off the streets. By working to get these women into training and education Tebereh launched Mums for Mums.
Despite no financial support from statutory bodies Mums for Mums has grown over the years and has become a valuable asset in Mekelle with many young women and families benefiting from it.
The most recent project is the building of a day care centre for the elderly, known as Kate’s Day Care Centre, after Kate Doherty, an SI Enniskillen member who brought the Mums for Mums project to the attention of SI in Northern Ireland.
Life expectancy in Ethiopia is 47 so there is no provision for the elderly. Together with Mums for Mums, N. Ireland clubs set out to build, equip and maintain a day centre for elderly ladies where they could have social contact, food, health care and access to showers as well as being educated about health issues.
Clubs raised money to build and equip the centre and it was opened in July 2010. Now they are raising money to buy a second hand minibus to transport more ladies.
The women now feel valued and empowered and as they spin cotton to make thread to be used to weave garments they feel they are contributing to the running of the centre. The centre is viewed as a model by the Ethiopian government and visitors from many countries have visited it.
One lady using the centre stated ‘I wake up each morning and I cannot wait to come to the Centre; it gives me so much happiness; they care for us so well. We have a shower and there is soap to clean our clothes; I like being clean. Life at home is difficult. There was a storm once, a great wind and I was walking and fell and then I lost my eyes. I have not been able to work since then. Coming to this centre is so much better than being at home, it makes me very happy.’
This Northern Ireland Regional project is on-going – another good example of educating, empowering and enabling!
SIGBI PROGRAMME AWARD – ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
SI PUNE METRO EAST – Organic Farming Education Project
This project was conceived to make children particularly girls aware about organic farming and using sustainable ways to revive the land and help green the environment. Without such education, farmers will sell their land and families will move away from farmlands, which will be bad for future generations.
It is anticipated that a change in attitude by the children will lead to improvements in how the land is cared for. Follow up classes will keep the project alive for the school children.