The photographs below show Cynthia receiving a brilliant array of items for our New Start and Christmas bags from the staff of Newcastle Futures. This collection was made as part of their corporate social responsibility programme called Pay it Forward – i.e. doing a good deed is repaid back to you at some point in the future.  Over the past year, they have raised in excess of £1000 for various charities. The team at Newcastle Futures have been working hard to collect items for the New Start Bags, used to help women and girls who have been rescued from traffickers across the North East of England. Newcastle Futures support the residents of Newcastle upon Tyne, helping people to move into employment. They link with partner organisations who can offer additional support to their clients. They also provide a recruitment service to employers looking to recruit local

On Thursday September 29th, our club speaker was Sophie Mitchell from the Tyneside Women’s Health Project.  She spoke about their work to provide services to women who are victims of domestic abuse. The project is funded by Comic Relief. Their main office is in Gateshead but they also have a smaller branch in Byker and recently have just opened an outreach office in North Tyneside. Part of their work is to deliver workshops for professionals to raise awareness of domestic abuse issues. Other aspects of their work, is to provide support groups for mental health needs;  counselling services to all volunteers who are undergoing training and  craft making groups. In addition, they have spoken to groups of Gateshead schoolchildren about younger women’s healthy relationships including what is consent; honour based violence and forced marriages. Sophie said that success included fifteen support groups established in Gateshead,

At our April 28th meeting, we were shown the new Save the Children’s Fund new campaign:’Every last Child’ by Jen Birch (S.T.C.F’s Community volunteering Manager) and Muriel McKenna (volunteer S.T.C.F’s Newcastle Branch Chair). The presentation gave us insights into the charity’s history, an overview of their work and their work with child refugees. I hope you enjoy viewing it; it is very thought provoking. We are hoping to do some fundraising for it in the near future.    

Thursday May 26th saw a hive of activity, as S.I. Newcastle members completed letters to be sent off to various stores, in and around Newcastle, asking for donations for ‘New Start Bags’. The contents of these bags will be given to women in the North East of England who have been trafficked. S.I. Newcastle is working with Northumbria Police in this work. Further information can be found by clicking on this link: http://www.northumbria.police.uk/advice_and_information/operation_sanctuary We will update you with the responses to this appeal …

Tuesday, 14th June was a Programme Action Meeting where a full programme of items was discussed. Items included fund raising for the Nepal Education Project (selling items at Tynemouth Station Market), the Treasurer’s Report (Chris Jones), New Start Bags, Project Choice, our friendship link with S.I. Glasgow and the Secretary’s Report (Christine Lumsdon). We had a visitor from S.I. Bangkok, Christiane Kitchakarn. Christine Lowthian (Joint President S.I. Newcastle) and Jill Smith (Immediate Past President S.I. Newcastle) talking with Christiane Kitchakarn (S.I. Bangkok) Christiane talked about her life in Bangkok and the work of S.I. Bangkok. She is hoping to visit us again when her daughter is next studying in Newcastle. She was particularly interested in the ‘New Start Bags’ and was planning to make a contribution which will be a wonderful input to this scheme.