Four club members attended the SIGBI conference in Edinburgh where Fresh Thoughts was shortlisted for the Best Practice Award – ENABLE We were delighted to win the Delegates’ nomination for Best Project and to learn that many clubs want to take Fresh Thoughts on as a local project.
Over 60 people came to our launch of the Fresh Thoughts Booklet in Dorchester at the end of June. With the support of STARS Dorset and the Chair of the Domestic Abuse Forum in Dorset council we reached out to those involved in supporting women survivors of DA. We were fortunate to have excellent speakers including survivors of DA. Many thanks to all involved and to our hosts at Dorchester Community church.
One of the main beneficiaries of our knitting and crocheting efforts is the Kori development project at Taiama in the Kori district of Sierra Leone. See more at https://koridp.org/ The project helps everyone in the community. This is a charity led by S.I. Thames valley, one whose members often comes to Dorset on holiday. We have contributed hats, jumpers and blankets for babies born in the clinic. This incentive has encouraged much larger numbers of women to have their babies in the clinic, meaning safer births and enabling the babies to be vaccinated much earlier than before. We have now begun to knit items for larger babies.
Poole Soroptimists have made Bottle Hats to contribute to the project between Age UK and Innocent: “The innocent big knit”. The picture shows the collection of hats we knitted for the project, our contribution to the 1.5 million hats they received! For every little knitted hat contributed, Innocent donates 25p to Age UK and so far they have raised £2.5 million. Buying a smoothie with a little hat on it is such a fun way of making a donation to Help The Aged!
We know that in some parts of the world, keeping bees can greatly improve the nutrition and finances of poor families. Bees Abroad works to educate and empower bee-keeping, and we are proud to have given £1,600, raised over two years, to a project in Uganda.
