International Women’s Day 2020 – blog on a survivor of sexual abuse
One of our members attended a workshop with a survivor of sexual abuse in Rotherham. Here is her account
Presentation by Sammy Woodhouse – Survivor of the Rotherham Child Sex Exploitation Scandal
Sammy presented a very moving account of what had happened to her after she met her abuser. It was tough to listen to what had happened to this bright and articulate woman after she met ‘Ash’ at the age of 12. She related how she had come from a loving family and had support from her parents, despite running away constantly and becoming pregnant at 14. He parents tried to get the Police and social services involved. However, she was by then completely controlled by her abuser. He had forced her to commit armed robberies, so Sammy would not cooperate because she would have a criminal record.
Sammy’s father found her diary and showed it to the Police. The diary and statements got ‘lost’ and her father was told he would get arrested if he persisted! Sammy was taken out of Rotherham and put into care. ‘Ash’ followed her. The Police stopped them on numerous occasions but did nothing – some Police were even corrupt and passed information to ‘Ash’ who was a very successful and rich drug dealer. Ash eventually went to prison for a stabbing. Sammy tried to leave ‘Ash’ but he threatened to kill her and her son and she tried to commit suicide on several occasions.
The family moved house and Sammy went into hiding. As a single parent she had to earn money. With no qualifications she went into glamour modelling and lap dancing.
Eventually she saw some headlines about abuse in Rotherham and her sister persuaded her to come forward. However, she knew that the police officer who interviewed her was corrupt. So she recorded her interview on her phone and took this evidence to the press.
Now she has turned to campaigning, in particular she wants children forced to commit crimes by abusers to be free of criminal records. She also wants the lives of ‘Lap dancers’ to be looked at more closely, after her own experience of this ‘profession’.
There are many more harrowing details to Sammy’s life that have not been written about here but this brave woman is doing all in her power to try to prevent children suffering the kind of abuse she has suffered. There is much to learn from her story.
Empowering Girls in Nepal
President Helen hosted a fabulous curry evening to raise funds for the new Soroptimists International Great Britain and Northern Ireland International Federation charity – ChoraChori, empowering girls in Nepal. Visit the Empowering Girls in Nepal website for more information.
We all brought a contribution of delicious curry or accompaniments to share and made a donation to the charity. We raised £160, and members are enthusiastic to continue support to this cause. The Founder of the Charity, Philip Holmes, came to our dinner meeting on 28th January to talk to us about the charity and other ways we can help – here is an account by one of our members:
Blog from Dorothea Ross-Simpson
On 28 January, our club welcomed Philip Holmes, the founder of ChoraChori to tell us about the work of the charity and what the Soroptimist support for some key projects the charity is working on can help achieve for girls and young women in Nepal over the coming three years. ChoraChori was chosen as the SIGBI Federation charity for 2019-2022 and our club had already started fundraising for ChoraChori at the end of last year, after hearing Philip speak at the SIGBI Annual Conference in Bournemouth. ChoraChori’s vision is to be at the forefront of a national and international network that confronts violence against Nepalese children and addresses its consequences.
UK registered charity ChoraChori (the Nepali word for ‘children’) is leading the fight in Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries, against rape and the stigma attached to rape. Sadly, reported cases of rape have quadrupled in the last ten years. But ChoraChori supports traumatised survivors and their families and brings rapists to justice. To this end, they have recently successfully raised funds to create a residential facility in Nepal for girls who have been raped, to educate and train them to enable them to return to society. Philip explained how ChoraChori in UK raises the funds and provides the expertise needed to allow ChoraChori-Nepal to operate as a self-sufficient social welfare organisation. UK administrative costs are kept to an absolute minimum and the Nepal operation has a small core staff at its Head Office in Kathmandu, supporting its amazing and courageous field staff, child rescue teams and its refuge/ rehabilitation operation.
Philip’s presentation was at times funny, and at times very affecting and sobering. Hearing his background information about Nepalese society and the particular challenges there to the wellbeing and safety of women and girls was distressing. But ChoraChori has been working tirelessly, with a group of dedicated and inspirational staff, to rescue, rehabilitate, reintegrate and empower young girls who have been victims of rape, trafficking or abuse. Some of the life stories which Philip shared with us were testament to the transformational and life changing long term effects of the work carried out by the charity’s staff and volunteers.
Club members and visitor alike were struck by Philip’s story, the scale of the challenges faced by young girls and women in Nepal and by the wonderful work undertaken by ChoraChori. There were many questions and a lively discussion among members but most of all, we all wanted to know what more we could do to support the work of the charity. Fundraising is the obvious way and in her vote of thanks, the club officer thanked Philip for his relentless work to help Nepalese children and pledged support from the club because the presentation made clear once again how strongly the aims of the charity resonates with what our own club stands for.
Because of the interest in the work carried out by ChoraChori, our meeting was extremely well attended with several visitors from sister clubs in the region who were also keen to find out more about this charity. Members gave generously to the raffle on the night. In ChoriChora terms, each £100 raised means school tuition fees for one girl for one year, or materials for one month for the tailoring course, or medicine for high risk illnesses for one week for one girl. So well done to all clubs represented on the night!
16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence
This is the second year we have done a big awareness raising campaign, and this year we worked with our local women’s refuge and support services Cheshire Without Abuse – a charity working in the Cheshire East area. It supports women, men and children whose lives have been affected by domestic abuse. We joined with women across the world to support this United Nations campaign to eliminate violence against women which is run annually from White ribbon Day November 25th and lasting 16 days to December 10th, which is Human Rights Day. This is also part of the #He4She campaign– We believe that men are part of the solution to tackle gender-based violence, so we asked local men who live in our community to act as allies and messengers to promote the campaign to create a gender equal world. Having local men stand up to say NO gives a powerful message to everyone that men need to be involved. We posted at least one photo a day throughout the campaign to build up a picture of support and encourage other men to say NO too. We also wrote some blogs to support the campaign that you can read here
Should I stay or should I go? By Alice Smith
‘Alice why did you stay? You are English, You are well educated. Why did you stay?’ This was the sort of question I was asked at the Women’s Economic Forum in Delhi from educated women around the world. I am going to be honest and say that this question got me drinking more whiskey. Because back then, I drank to blot out my feelings of shame about being a survivor of domestic abuse. Have you ever asked anyone this question? Have you ever asked yourself?
Just say no
I think we are trained to stay. I mean, there are whole religions that tell women to stay and refuges all over the world full of women in hiding because they broke the rules.These rules were made by men to retain their rights to dominate women. Financially, sexually and physically.
Why did you stay? is not just a personal question, it’s a political one.
It takes a great deal of courage to say no when acid could be thrown in your face by cowardly men. It takes courage to leave when you will also be losing your whole family, sometimes your children and your name. Your identity.
What’s your name?
Most survivors – including myself – live with a pen name. This change reflects that we lost our own life but choosing our own name is healing. It gave me back a bit of control when I had lived with none. I think trans women understand this too. The new name has a loss within it but all loss also contains transformation.
Why did you stay Alice?
Before i answer, I have to get past the shame. I want you to know this about shame. Shame puts survivors back under the duvet. It disables them. It used to disable me.
Own your ugly
The 361 recovery programme I have developed leads to facing the mirror. Asking ourselves why we stayed. Wriggling a little. Facing the mirror and speaking out our answer. This is where recovery gets uncomfortable. But it’s also a release from that circle of dating horrible men and focusing on them. Now we are focusing on our choices. I call this owning your ugly – admitting why you stayed without blame. Forgiving yourself. Releasing yourself from that addictive circle, post trauma. By doing this, I was able to stop drinking to numb the shame. Because once I admitted my ugly, I no longer felt ashamed.
Why did you stay Alice?
I stayed because of pride. Because I was in a second marriage and i didn’t want to fail again. I didn’t want to lose anymore.
I lost it all when I left. I feel lighter now.
The 361 recovery programme can help you lose the shame.
Why did you leave?
Why did you leave? Can you pin down the reasons? Not really. They are like birds. Those reasons fly away – like you did.
Stages of release
If we look back (and the 361 recovery programme helps us to do this) we can see the signs. We may well think that there was a final straw. A comment that just went too far. A betrayal. An empty fridge or an empty bank balance. In some ways, yes that final thing did push us to leave. But the answers lie further back in our story. There are stages of leaving.
Car crash
Why is it so important that we look back? Shouldn’t we just get on with it? Move on? This is a bit like being involved in a crash then dragging our bleeding leg around at parties and being surprised when people either move away (‘Baggage! Run!) or jump on (Prey!) If we go for the quick fix (jumping into a new relationship without grieving it) we will find ourselves in the same place in between 2 and 5 years’ time. That’s why it is worth pausing and getting help with that leg.
The 361 recovery programme has been designed with this question in mind.
Why did you leave Alice?
It’s very easy to blame the other person. I did. If this other person is a Beast, then we are Beauty. We can get sympathy as a victim from friends. We can hook up with other victims and trade stories about ex’s. It’s a circle of behaviour I was in. Believe me, it works. Ultimately though it begins to drain us. And our conversation is always focused on them. What they did. And why we think they did it. Looking back, I have noticed that this is all I used to talk about. The focus was not on me for a reason. I didn’t want to face my part in all of this.
I had a supporting role in my own life. The abusers were the stars.
Why did you leave?
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this is the question we need to ask ourselves. Within the answer is the key to our recovery. The seeds. Why do we make such big changes in one small moment and then live with them for the rest of our lives? I can vividly remember telling my dangerous husband I was leaving. I felt chilled. I felt like I was watching someone else speak. There was a curious film like quality to it (as there is to all of our Big moments.) And what I most feared came true. Years of losing it all. To gain my freedom.
Why did I leave? This question haunted me at first. I had money, a huge house, high social status in a rich area and a top job at a private school. It’s only now – 5 years on – that I can begin to put it into words. Why?
Domestic Violence Blog by Dorothea Ross-Simpson
As soroptimists, our Club’s vision is to help ‘Women and girls achieve their individual and collective potential, realise aspirations and have an equal voice in creating strong, peaceful communities worldwide.’ But we are reminded virtually daily, through reports in the media, that for many many women, it is the men in their lives who use domestic violence to control them and to put barriers in their way to prevent them from achieving this potential, from realising those aspirations and from having that equal voice. The statistics are grim and there appears to be very little progress towards allowing women to live lives free from abuse and violence.
Domestic violence overshadows every aspect of the lives of the women affected. Their health and mental well-being, their parenting, their economic status, their educational achievement and the contribution they are able to make to their communities. If one woman suffers, we all suffer. For many people, receiving a jail sentence would be the worst thing that ever happened to them. But when you’ve been experiencing domestic abuse – as most female prisoners have – you may experience the time in prison as an escape from your abusive partner. The Prison Reform Trust estimates that 57% of female prisons are survivors of domestic abuse. This abuse of course may have taken many different forms. Physical battering is the one we most often associate with domestic abuse. The woman who wears sunglasses on a cloudy day in winter may well hide a black eye or the pensioner who shows up in A&E with a broken arm from having ‘run into a door’. While on television, there are now finally plots involving women who suffer domestic abuse and showing the devastating impact this is having, and even the Archers ran a much reported very powerful coercive control storyline with their ‘Helen and Rob’ story which unfolded over a number of months in 2018. Despite this, it is a very sad and scary fact which comes up time and time again in many of these reports is how isolating domestic abuse is and how the systematic withdrawal of a woman from her familial and social support networks is a defining factor of so many cases, leaving the women at the heart of these cases feeling desperately alone and unsure where to turn where they will not be judged. The first reaction of many of us – when confronted with evidence of domestic abuse involving somebody we know – will be to wonder why they don’t simply turn and ‘walk away’. By expecting the woman to have the strength to break away from her situation which may tie her in with for us invisible chains is essentially to victim-blame her when instead our first response should always be to expect the abuser to be challenged, stopped, and punished. Instead, we often show frustration or dismay with the women when they time and time again return home after a stint in A&E, withdraw their statement to the police or don’t open the door to the social worker. For those of us who have not found ourselves in abusive relationships, it is unimaginable not to walk away when the first blow falls. But the reality is very different and sadly, for all too many women this is a weekly or often daily occurrence and feel normal, it may even be a repeat of patterns they have experienced or observed all their lives, gradually coming to expect nothing better for themselves, and – worst of all – maybe even feeling they do not deserve better.
Over the years there have been so many cases, some involving celebrities, some involving very young women, and with all too many ending with the death of the victim which we will have read about in the papers in gruesome detail. Almost one in three women aged 16-59 will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime (Office for National Statistics (2019) Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview: November 2019) and even more shockingly, two women a week are killed by a current or former partner in England and Wales alone (Office for National Statistics (2019) Homicide in England and Wales: year ending March 2018 (average taken over 10 years).
We will probably all have been touched by particular cases which breaks through the relentless stream of daily news stories to touch a nerve with us. And for many of us, one of those cases was the case of Sally Challen, the wife and mother who in 2011 was convicted for the murder of her abusive husband Richard but eventually won her appeal this summer on the grounds of having endured more than 30 years of Richard’s extreme form of coercive control. The details which emerged of the years of demeaning, humiliating and undermining control he exercised were truly shocking. Next week[1], there will be a BBC documentary about this landmark case which will hopefully in many homes and in many soroptimist clubs challenge us to ask what more we can do to support women in our midst who endure sometimes decades of abuse without anybody stepping in, and what we can do to empower them to achieve their potential, realise their aspirations and feel that they have a voice.
[1] 9 December 9pm, BBC2
National Conference Bournemouth
Nine of us went to Bournemouth for the Annual SIGBI Conference in October– it was stimulating and enjoyable! We heard from some inspirational speakers, and the theme of mental health and wellbeing was running through all the talks and activities. For more details of the conference itself here is a link to the conference site on the SIGBI Website. Here we are having some fun and getting the most out the event!
Championing Women’s Mental Health
Our theme this year is to promote awareness of mental health issues for women. We had an inspiring talk and discussion about the services offered by local mum’s charity Motherwell in Cheshire at our dinner meeting in September. Motherwell Cheshire has been empowering women on their mothering journey since 2015. Led by Kate Blakemore, a passionate women’s health advocate and counsellor, Motherwell is run by women, for women. We were also delighted to make a contribution to the Mental Health Conference organised by Motherwell to mark World Mental Health Day on 10th October. This was an opportunity to raise awareness of mental health issues faced by women and what we are doing locally to address these.
We wrote a blog about World Mental Health day that you can read here:
World Mental Health Day, on 10 October, is a day for us to unite in our efforts to improve the mental health of people around the world. As a club, we have had a theme of promoting mental wellbeing this year through our speakers, charities and communications – it is an issue dear to our hearts. This also supports the Soroptimists International great Britain and Northern Ireland (SIGBI) Federation theme – our Federation President Sue Williams said
“At the beginning of the Soroptimist year, I asked you to ‘Think On It.’ I asked you to join with me to raise awareness of our own wellbeing. I asked that we talked about mental health and the importance of advocating for the good mental health for others by speaking out and raising awareness. By doing so, we are educating, enabling and empowering ourselves and others. And you did so in many, many ways! Thank you.
We haven’t finished our work on this yet, but today gives us pause for thought.
The theme selected for this year’s Day is suicide prevention.
we are encouraging you to prepare to take “40 seconds of action” on 10 October to help us: improve awareness of the significance of suicide as a global public health problem; improve knowledge of what can be done to prevent suicide; reduce the stigma associated with suicide; and let people who are struggling know that they are not alone. Put simply, this is an opportunity to show you care. Everyone can take part in whichever way makes most sense. Your activity may be private, for example, initiating a conversation with someone you are worried about or sharing a message of hope with someone who is struggling; or it may be public, for example posting a video message for local or national authorities about action you would like them to take on this issue.
We are also delighted to be making a contribution to the Mental Health Conference organised by local mum’s charity Motherwell. Kate Blakemore, CEO of Motherwell says
“Since doing the topic of “Let’s Talk More” on my radio show, it made me realise how important it is to talk about such issues, so I decided to bring everyone together and open the topic up.”
Our Club President, Helen Piddock-Jones is talking about the how women experience mental health issues, and why it is such an issue for us to tackle.
One of the issues we are supporting locally is to make Nantwich a dementia friendly town, recognising that dementia affects more women than men, and many carers are also women. Dementia is a devasting condition, robbing people of their personalities and abilities but we know that people with dementia can still lead a good life, and we are committed to supporting this. Watch out for more on this as we work with the group to Turn the Town Blue next May!
We also had another inspiring evening with Tracy and Gillian from Crewe YMCA at our November meeting updating us on how their support to children and families has grown since we last met. We heard how mental health issues are affecting children and young people, and we were shocked to learn how children’s self-harm has become almost normalised with little help available to them. This makes services from the YMCA especially important and offering a real lifeline to vulnerable children and their families. It was good to hear that a great deal of fun is had with the children through their work,
SI Convention in Kuala Lumpur July
Two of our members, Caroline Marsh and Jacquie Weatherill, went to Kuala Lumpur for the International Convention. Over 1000 women from across the world gathered to consider issues such as sexual exploitation, women innovating in new technology, women’s health issues and the environment. It was super stimulating as well as chance to hear how Soroptimists are making a difference globally, nationally and locally.
Samaritans Awareness Day 24th July 2019
Societies Spectacular 20th July 2019
Here are some pictures of us in action!
See here for news of our visit to The Pankhurst Museum on 2nd July 2019
Goodbye and good luck to Helen Morris
We are sorry that Helen Morris is leaving the club and moving to Lincoln very shortly. Helen joined just over a year ago and has refreshed and maintained our website over the last year, and hasn’t she done a brilliant job! She has been an active energetic member and was also a key member of the 70th Anniversary Conference team. She has made a great contribution to the club, as well as being good company and we will certainly miss her. We wish her all the best for the new chapter in her life in Lincoln.
International Women’s Engineering Day 23rd June 2019
To support this day to encourage more girls to pursue engineering as a career we have written a blog highlighting the work we have done to enable girls to experience science at school, and the exciting racing car projects being run at local primary school Leighton Academy to encourage girls – have a read here: https://sigbi.org/nantwich-and-district/whats-new/latest-blogs-and-articles/international-women-in-engineering-day-23rd-june-2019/
70th Anniversary Conference 1 June 2019:
Read more about the day now!
Full report -SI Nantwich and District 70th Anniversary Conference: 1 June 2019
We had a great day at our 70th Anniversary conference at the Hunters Lodge.
70th Anniversary Writing Competition 2019
What a very special evening we had Tuesday 14 May. We had invited the winners of our 2019 writing competition to attend our meeting and receive their prizes. See more details here: 70th Anniversary – Writing Competition