Almost 50 Members of Soroptimist International London Chilterns Region were treated to a wonderful Summer Conference on Saturday 20 June at Wycombe Wanderers Football Stadium. The event was hosted by Soroptimist International High Wycombe & District who did a great job putting the event together to make it a success.
Attendees heard from “Chosen” a charity supporting women in High Wycombe who are sexually exploited – they also made generous donations of much needed pants, socks and toiletries. Jen Simpson from SI High Wycombe is pictured here with the donations. The presentation about the amazing work of Amref Health Africa – UK was excellent. There were also reports of lots of great projects run by Clubs in the Region.
President Rita Beaumont’s theme for the Region 2025-2027 is “Good Health and Wellbeing – the Right of Everyone” – you will see that the speakers fit the brief well and there will be more to add on the day too. Rita is pictured here on the day with Pam Robertson the Region’s Programme Action Officer.
The day began with Jane Herrick from SI High Wycombe leading everyone in the room in reading the Soroptimist Vision and Mission which was very moving when said out loud as a collective: https://sigbi.org/who-we-are/our-vision-mission/.
Our first speaker was Richard Lodge, CEO of Chosen, High Wycombe. This is a charity that supports women who are sexually exploited or trafficked for sex. Chosen provides such women with hope for an alternative future away from control, exploitation and addiction by providing an alternative place of belonging for them. Richard started with a quiz to give us all an idea of the scale of the problem right across the UK, with social media and the availability of drugs making it worse then ever.
Richard spoke about how unconditional and consistent acts of generosity to sexually 
exploited women can enable them to walk free from coercion and addiction, and into new and restored community life. Chosen has outreach volunteers who walk out in the streets every Tuesday evening meeting women working on the streets. The team carries home-made cakes, umbrellas and every day essential items that promote the well-being of women they meet. Richard told us the real story of “Phyllis” – they had met her 18 times before she came into the centre for help – she was sick, suicidal and had no clothes. She had been trafficked into the UK and had hit rock bottom – she became homeless and the money she earned as a sex worker was paying for the drug habit of both her and her controller. Richard only had one slide to show us – showing the horrendous conditions she had been living in. After a lot of intervention and more hardship, including imprisonment for shoplifting (where Chosen were her only visitors), she was deported to her home country. She remains grateful for the non-judgemental kindness she received from Chosen and Richard stayed in contact. He told us that she is still drug-clean, healthy and has a future and lots of ideas to prevent others having a worse outcome than hers. One idea is a drop-in centre which is being worked on. As always there were great questions – leading to conversations about the added complexity of pregnancy, children, rehab, and how vulnerable women are when they leave prison. SI High Wycombe continues to support Chosen and the Region will make a donation. Richard was very grateful to be able to take such a good pile of pants, socks and toiletries away with him.
Region Projects – during the day Pam Robertson, the Region’s Programme Action Officer led two sessions where we heard about some great projects and events from St Albans, Thames Valley, High Wycombe, Bedford, Hertford and Milton Keynes Clubs. (more detail to follow). Sadly we also heard that the Aylesbury Club is closing.
SI St Albans & District – Club Member Ann Beatty is the CEO of the Steve Sinnott Foundation https://www.stevesinnottfoundation.org.uk/. She was able to give an update of the work of the this educational charity since being awarded £40k by the SI Foundation last year. You can read about it here: https://www.soroptimistinternational.org/project/soroptimist-international-foundation-steve-sinnott-foundation-ensuring-girls-equitable-access-to-education/ ‘Ensuring Girls’ Equitable Access to Education’ project tackles two major barriers to girls’ education: period poverty and gender-based violence in Haiti, Nepal, The Gambia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone.
SI Thames Valley – Smita Bora told us about the campaign to give children a smart-phone free childhood to keep them safe – parents are asked to sign the pledge https://www.smartaboutsmartphones.org/pledge.
SI High Wycombe & District – Sue Granshaw told us that they have been out in the community raising awareness for Dementia Action Week in May.
SI Bedford – Rita Beaumont told us about the Housing Association that the Club has been involved with since 1934. The accommodation was originally for retired ladies who previously had lived in tied accommodation. Rita has been the chair recently. The properties now have managing agents and are being handed over to Pilgrims Christian Housing which will make it more sustainable.
SI Hertford – Pam Robertson told us about their microfinancing with Lend With Care https://lendwithcare.org/ where a little bit of money can make a big difference. Many Soroptimist Clubs and individual Soroptimists do this type of investment and SIGBI can look at the results as a collective showing what a massive difference it can make. Some Clubs invest in Kiva which works in a similar way https://www.kiva.org/.
SI Milton Keynes – Sue Key gave a round up of lots of activities – their “16 Days of activism to end violence against women” exhibition last November with artwork displayed in different places; the success of collecting 50p pieces; Orange Cafes; and some exciting developments with the Open University on courses about building healthy relationships.
SI St Albans & District – Helen Byrne talked about the Club’s Planet Team efforts to raise awareness of what we eat and where it comes from at “Bring and Share” supper Club events. Last year people were asked to bring plant-based food to share and watched videos to encourage discussion about the benefits to the planet of reducing people’s intake of meat. This year the focus is on reducing food miles and buying local where possible.
Sue Granshaw from SI High Wycombe is pictured here with our next speakers: Beverley Jewell and Helen Brabant-Bleakley of Amref Health Africa, Africa’s leading health NGO. Amref believes that health is a human right and the key to a brighter future. Africa has 25% of the global disease burden but only 3% of the global health workforce. Neonatal mortality is 10 times that in the UK. If you want communities to thrive you have to improve the health of the people. Amref is trusted because it is run by African people in Africa – it is people centred, and they ask what help is needed rather than impose what they think is required. This is something that Soroptimists are very familiar with, particularly with the Kori Development Project in Sierra Leone from SI Thames Valley. Fresh water is key to good health so building wells and bore holes close to schools, communities and health facilities is essential. They spoke about the importance of partnerships like Water Aid. A big issue has been the recent withdrawal of funding from the USA.
In the slides it shows how far donations can go when spent on Amref projects:
£48 could vaccinate 8 children against fatal diseases like polio by a trained health worker
£80 could help pay for a frontline health worker for 3 months to deliver essential health services
£112 could help construct a standpipe in two schools, ensuring children have access to safe water.
£200 could fund a mobile clinic with high-quality services for 8 families
The Region has made a speaker donation but if anyone wants to make an additional donation they can do it directly to Amref https://amref.org/ or by making a payment to the Region.
Their presentation is available to download here: Amref UK_Soroptimists
Beverley Jewell first connected with Amref Health Africa in 2014 when she worked in Nairobi for 6 months supporting medical outreach programmes with data collection across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. On returning to the UK she volunteered at the London office and then became a Trustee in 2020. She has been able to visit programmes in Kenya and Tanzania in recent years focussed on, for example water security and health worker training
Helen Brabant-Bleakley is the Philanthropy Manager for Amref Health Africa UK working with Amref’s dedicated major donors and foundations. She was drawn to Amref because of its community-led approach, finding tangible solutions to systemic problems. She’s been inspired by meeting Amref trained health workers in Africa who are working every day to make health equality a reality for all.
Amref partners with communities in 35 countries to identify their unique health challenges and co-design solutions to close the gap between them and the healthcare that they need. Amref can adapt to changes and address new challenges – like the climate crisis, the rise in NCDs (non-communicable disease eg diabetes), pandemic preparedness, or the specific health needs of Africa’s young people – as soon as they arise. Amref grows and strengthens Africa’s health workforce, developing mobile and digital learning solutions that make world-class training available across the continent. Amref’s International University provides health sciences training to the continent’s future health leaders. Amref says “We are the go-to partner for governments across the continent that are seeking to embed equitable healthcare access into their policies and plans.”
Every year, Amref supports millions of people across Africa to access the health information and services they need. They design and implement programmes with communities that address their unique health challenges, from clean water to preventable diseases, maternal health to ending Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), training health workers on the social and economic factors that influence a person’s health.
Our last guest speaker was Yasmin Harris, Assistant Manager & Safeguarding Lead at Wycombe Youth Action who came to tell us about the charity. She told us that it almost went bust last year which would have been a big loss because of the great work they do within the community to target and challenge perceptions around young people. They do this by completing multi-generational and conservation projects to give back to the community and challenge and change stereotypes faced by young people today. The photo is of Wycombe Youth Action with a High Wycombe PCSO. Yasmin told us about the music project they have produced to involve young people in challenging knife crime. They devised the song in 28 hours, then developed the video enlisting professional expertise to produce and refine it. The vision is to have a copy in every school and youth club in the country.
At the end we played the brilliant positive video of the song from Wycombe Youth Action NO KNIFE CRIME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxzVXhG6amM – turn up the volume and please share widely!
President Rita closed the meeting thanking everyone for a great day, and reminding us of future events:
Sat 10 Oct – SILC Region AGM/Conference – 10am to 4pm Lancaster Hall Hotel 35 Craven Terrace, London W2 3EL. The keynote speaker is award winning Professor Sophie Harman – author of “Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women’s Health”. We will also hear from SIGBI President Gillie O’Rourke and Club Members will be asked in advance for questions to put to her. More details will be available soon.
Sat 17 Oct – SI High Wycombe & District – 10am to 1pm – Conference for Ending the Abuse of Women: From Silence to Safety, Empowering Women, Engaging Communities, Creating Change. Willow Room, Bucks New University https://www.bucks.ac.uk/ Queen Alexandra Road, High Wycombe, HP11 2JZ. More information will be available soon.
Fri 30-Sat 31 Oct – Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland Conference Cardiff – Click here for more information https://sigbi.org/cardiff2026/ please email silondonchilterns@hotmail.com if you are planning to attend so that we can co-ordinate arrangements as a group.
Sat 5 Dec – SILC Region Human Rights Day Celebration – Zoom 10am to 1pm.