Salisbury has recently established a Friendship Link with SI Chisinau in the SI European Union of Moldova.
At the Club’s meeting by Zoom on 23 November the 14 Salisbury members who joined the call welcomed 6 Soroptimists from SI Chisinau. It was a great opportunity to meet each other long distance, to introduce ourselves and to have a chat about our respective Clubs and our projects. As always with these get togethers, we found we had much in common and we are already starting to discuss the possibility of a joint project between the two clubs. The Moldovan Soroptimists highlighted the huge need in their country amongst older women, almost a whole generation has been wiped away for various reasons and elderly women have suffered badly, even prior to the current pandemic. Things have only got worse.
In the summer, SI Salisbury decided to accept the invitation to link with the Moldovan Club after hearing about their project work from Membership Secretary Jane Ebel who has spent much time in their country working with an NGO. There is a substantial diaspora of Moldovans living and working in Salisbury, so we plan to strengthen the local links too. Oh, and Salisbury members plan to try to learn a few words of Romanian and/or Russian too before our next international catch up!