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Our Work (Programme Action)

We are committed to a world where women and girls together achieve their individual and collective potential, realise their aspirations and have an equal voice in creating strong and peaceful communities worldwide.

We do this through raising awareness of women’s issues, to advocate and taking action to enable, empower and ensure women and girls are educated and have equal rights. this work includes  working in our communities to make the lives of women and girls better, to raise awareness of women’s issues such as domestic violence, female genital mutilation, championing against period poverty and ensuring equality with men and boys for education in schools and colleges, as well as the work place.

As a club, we are part of a bigger world wide community of soroptimists. We champion for rights through the united nations. we report our activities to Soroptimist International of Great Britain & Ireland, where all our work is collated. Some projects that we do run internationally, currently our International President’s charity is educating, empowering and enabling women to manage water supply which is essential for life https://www.soroptimistinternational.org/campaigns/women-water-and-leadership-2017-2019/ , to date £260k has been raised of the £350k target. We also have national projects such as our Kenyan, Women’s Garden Project whom we have supported through fundraising for last 3 years https://meruwomen.org/  – for this community we have transformed the lives of women and girls by making them self sufficient, gaining respect and enabling education. In the autumn we will be starting a new project in Nepal, where we will fund a refuge to support trafficked children until they can return home safely. The project enables a group of vulnerable girls from Tipling, to complete their secondary school education up to grades 11 and 12.

Locally we provide services as well as raise monies for charities locally, nationally and internationally.

We are really excited about a new pop-up café that we provide once a month to the older people on a ward E at Neath Port Talbot Hospital. We work in partnership with the ward staff. The event is popular with patients really looking forward to the next one.

Monthly we make a collection for our local food bank. In the last year, as a group we made a decision to supply women’s hygiene products to support help impact on Period Poverty https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-43513354 

Every year in May or June, we collect tools, sewing machines, wools and needles with one of our partners: Tools for Self Reliance  (TFSR) Cymru. We have undertaken this project for many years and have made a difference to people in Zanzania. TFSR Cymru improves the lives of African artisans & families by providing them with quality refurbished recycled hand tools & training. From the tools etc that we collect, some will be shipped out to Africa, whilst others are sold to raise monies for the shipping container.

Annually on the 25th November, the UN 16 days of Activism starts. We support and raise awareness of domestic violence and ask individuals to make a pledge to support the initiative at the stall that we place in the foyer at Aberavon Beach Hotel. http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/take-action/16-days-of-activism

We hold many regular events. these include:

  • In January/ February we hold our annual fun evening. We have had beetle drives, rolling whist drives and quiz night. Here we raised monies for Cruse, Cruse Children & Target Ovarian Cancer.
  • In March, we celebrate International Women’s Day by holding a Fair Trade Breakfast. We have a talk from an inspirational women. The speaker donates monies made from the raffle to a charity of her choice. Others monies raised to go into our charities account and are distributed at the end of the year. Some of the inspirational women we have had include:
  • In May, our Ladies Luncheon, Fashion Show and Craft Fayre. The event is always well attended with tickets booked a year in advance. At this event, we raise awareness about our club and raise funds for local charities. Recently we have supported: Mind, Hafal, Blood Bikes Cymru; SNAC; Age Cymru and Air Ambulance.
  • In June, we support Friends of the Hospital, Port Talbot at the annual hospital fete. We run a bottle staff. Monies raised are give the Friends of Hospital Port Talbot.
  • In September we have a stall at the Hearts of the Valley’s Show in Pontardawe. here we run a bottle staff and distribute the money between a local and international charity. The last couple of years we have raised funds for Meru Garden Project; Blood Bikes Cymru & Hafal.
  • In October we hold our Coffee Morning. We have an inspirational speaker and have stalls. We normally have our own jewellery staff, last year we had a Christmas craft stall and this year we added a cake stall. Speaker donates  monies raised to their charity choice; other monies go into our charities account for distribution at the end of the year.

In the last 10 years, we have raised in excess of £40k. The charities we have supported include (not exhaustive): Age Cymru Afan Nedd, Bloodwise, CRUSE, DEWIS, Friends of Monze, Hafal, Friends of the Hospital Port Talbot, Grenfell Towers, Life for African Mothers, Mind; Mission to Seafarers, NSPCC Baglan,  Port Talbot Food Bank, Royal British Legion, RNLI, Save the Children, SNAC, Target Ovarian Cancer, Toilet Twinning, Ty Hafan.

You may wish to read more about of events by reading our newsletter & Programme Action Report