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Comunity Fridges/Community Larders
Community Larders/Comunity Fridges in Milton Keynes

Community Larders/Comunity Fridges in Milton Keynes

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SOFEA Community Larders in Milton Keynes These are difficult times for every body and we can all help each other by giving support where we can and raising awareness of initiatives that help people. There are a number of Community Larders in Milton Keynes as part of the SOFEA iniitative.  You pay a one off membership fee to join and then pay a weekly amount of £3.50 for which you will receive  £12-£15 of food each week.   SOFEA community Larders are there for the local community and are not just a place to access food. You can stop and chat, catch up with friends or make new friends. The community larder is also a place for support and advice. Perhaps you need to ask a question about debt or finances. Perhaps you want to know how to access mental health care. Perhaps you’re worried – about

Music Event 2022 raising £600 funds for Ukraine crisis and Winter Night Shelter. LOvely to have some of the Ukrainian families in MK come along
Music Event 2022

Music Event 2022

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        In 2021 we held our first Music event with the help of one of our members Karen Mason who is an Oboe player and she very kindly agreed to donate her time and that of her friends again for us this year. Our Music event was on 8 October at the Mead Centre, Newport Pagnell and this year we were raising funds for two very important issues. The first is our link charity the Winter Night Shelter.  They have continued to see significant numbers of people requiring their services and with the current cost of living crisis need all the help they can get.  if you want to learn more and how you can help.  Click here. The other issue we wanted to help with was the Ukraine crisis. We had made a donation earlier in the year and on 1 October some of

Stop Spiking

Stop Spiking

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Definitions of drink and needle spiking (Home Affairs Committee Report, published April 2022: Drink spiking is when someone puts drugs or alcohol into a person’s drink without their knowledge or consent. It can include putting alcohol into a non-alcoholic drink, adding extra alcohol to an alcoholic drink or slipping prescription or illegal drugs (such as tranquilisers, amphetamines or GHB – liquid ecstasy) into an alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink.  It can be difficult to tell whether a drink has been spiked, as substances used for spiking usually have no taste, odour or colour. -Needle spiking is where someone surreptitiously  injects, with a hypodermic needle (or other form of administration e.g., combi-pen) a victim with a substance. There has been a prevalence of drink spiking in recent years, but needle spiking appears to be a new phenomenon in the UK from 2021, peaking in October 2021, coinciding

Winter NIght Shelter need volunteers 2022
Winter Night Shelter need Volunteers

Winter Night Shelter need Volunteers

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  Winter Night Shelters will be opening end of November 2022  After two consecutive years of being unable to open due to Covid-19, The Winter Night Shelter MK are thrilled to announce they will be opening their night shelters at the end of November 2022 for people in need of emergency overnight accommodation. The current cost of living crisis is forcing more of us into stressful and uncertain circumstances, and our welfare team, who work at our day centre throughout the week, are busier than ever – seeing more than 250 people each week, some of whom will desperately need somewhere to sleep each evening. There are lots of different roles based either in our overnight shelters located throughout Milton Keynes, or in our welfare centre at Unity Park Station which will be hosting the evening meal and morning breakfast service. All details about the venues,

Ukraine Appeal Winter 2022 in MK
Ukraine Appeal for Winter items – Pleasse Help

Ukraine Appeal for Winter items – Pleasse Help

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The war in Ukraine continues and has become the biggest refugee crisis since World War 2, with citizens being displaced acrosss Europe.  But we are now into winter and with tempertures dropping the citizens and soliders still need our help.  If you have any of the above items you can spare please can you donate them to the Ukraine warehouse at 50 Tanners Drive Blakelands.  They are hoping to get a van out to the Ukraine on 5 December and 28 December, so any donations you can make for shipment on those days would be gratefully received.  Please share this with friends. The Ukrainian Appeal charity are looking for donations to help provide emergency relief including medical supplies and assistance, provision of clean water, shelter and food and other necessary items.  The charity also support internally displaced persons, host communities and refugees in neighbouring countries. 

Forced Marraige Campaign 2022
Forced Marriage – a form of Modern Day Slavery

Forced Marriage – a form of Modern Day Slavery

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  Today on August 25th 2022 Soroptimists in the UK are wearing orange to draw attention to the practice of Forced Marriage, which is recognised as a form of Modern – Day Slavery. What is Forced Marriage? The Government website (click here to view) defines it as: Forced marriage is when one or both people do not or cannot consent to the marriage, and pressure or abuse is used to force them into marriage. Forced marriage is illegal in the UK. It is a form of domestic abuse and a serious abuse of an individual’s human rights. The International Labour Organisation (ILO)estimates that 15.4 million people around the world are in situations of forced marriages and it is estimated that 84% of these are women and girls. There are three main types of forced marriage: Forced marriage of adults Early or child marriage Trafficking for

Orange The World - End Violence Against Women
Orange the World – End Violence Against Women

Orange the World – End Violence Against Women

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At our July branch meeting this month, we welcomed Sue Burke from MK Act who gave us a great insight into the Orange the World Campaign to End Violence Against Women . The Orange the World Campaign started back in 1991, is led by the United Nations and is marked every year on the 25 November, which is International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women.  It is followed by 16 Days of Activism and ends on Human Rights Day on 10 December. The 16 Days of Activism raises awareness about violence against women and girls as a human rights issue, focusing on the importance of grassroots work on violence against women as well as providing an international platform for advocacy and campaigning. The dates for the campaign were chosen to link violence against women and human rights and emphasise that gender-based violence against women

Plastic Free July Calendar
Reduce Single Use Plastic Waste

Reduce Single Use Plastic Waste

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This years Theme for Soroptimist Day of Action on July 16, was to raise awareness about the need to reduce single-use plastic waste.  There are so many ways and schemes that can help you to do this.  For the whole of July we used our social media Twitter platform to share many tips using #PlasticFreeJuly.  They have a very useful website ( click here ) which helps you see just how much single use plastic you are using, that is scary in itself but there also provides many tips on how to change. If we all took it upon ourselves to make just one or two changes, it will help to save our earth, save our oceans, save our climate for future generations. Please share this with your friends and take up the challenge.  Its not just Plastic Free July it should be Plastic Free

Platinum Celebration and Pre Loved Clothes Sale 7 June 2022
Pre Loved clothes Sale

Pre Loved clothes Sale

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          For our Platinum celebration we held a Pre-Loved Clothes sale.  Thank you everyone for coming and bringing along your friends and much loved clothes to recycle to a new home and at the same time raise funds for our charities.   We raised an amazing £450 plus. A big thank you Vanessa for being our amazing host and for everyone getting into the spirit of the evening.  We raised a toast to Her Majesty the Queen and to her hard unstinting work, an inspiriing woman to be inspired by and we had some lovely patriotic dishes to enjoy with our drink. As Soroptimists we believe in recycling, reducing waste and this event ticked those boxes for us.   And the clothes left over are being donated to Age UK MK, an independent local charity here in MK to sell in their shops to raise much needed

Fish and Chip Quiz Night July 2022 raised over £500 for our charities
Fish and Chip Quiz – Great Success

Fish and Chip Quiz – Great Success

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Thank you everyone who came to our Fish and Chip Quiz night at Simpson Village Hall on 9 July 2022.  A great evening was had by all.  Tasty Fish and Chips and a great Quiz, overseen as always by the great Miss Quiz, who we must thank for her work.  Miss Quiz runs quizs every month and this year alone by July has raised over £6k for local Chairites.  Thank you Miss Quiz. And our evening was a great success.  Everyones donations added up to over £500 for our charities.  And we received over half a dozen shopping bags of new and unused toilketries which have been distributed to MK Act (Women’s Refuge), MK YMCA and the Winter Night Shelter MK. The evening was such a success that we will be holding another one next year so please share and hope to see you then.