We were delighted to welcome Ian Holland, Senior Consultant to the United Nations, and his wife Samira to our dinner meeting this month. Ian has lived and worked all over the world, often in dangerous countries and indeed had only arrived just back from Jakarta, Indonesia, where he’d had to leave slightly earlier than planned due to the uprisings there due to the elections. Any jet lag didn’t show and he gave us a very informative talk about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
Like all good speakers, this wasn’t a dry presentation on the 17 Goals, but made lively and interactive by Club members joining in playing SDG bingo! (Possibly a first for Club, bring prizes added to the competitive spirit and fun!!). Ian gave us an update on the original 8 Goals 2000-2015 and what has been achieved. And how the aspirations of the SDGs 2015-2030 will affect the lives of women and girls.
It was good to hear that our work as Soroptimists, albeit on a small scale is still worthwhile and has impact. At our last business meeting Andrea had shown how our Programme Action and link to UN Goals 2019 activities were working.