Following the huge success of its “Dress a Girl Around the World” project last year, SI Winchester is launching it this year as a competition.
Breaking a habit : FGM in Tanzania’s Mara Region SI Woking & District organised an open meeting in early October, jointly with Amnesty International, with a speaker from Tanzania. Rhobi Samwelly, of the Anglican Diocese of Mara, in northern Tanzania, had come to the UK to raise awareness and funds for her project to eliminate FGM in the region. Rhobi, speaking to a packed house, first placed the practice of female circumcision in the wider social and economic context, emphasising that men and boys must be convinced to change their culture and expectations of women and women need economic and social empowerment. In particular she mentioned an earlier project to build grain grinding mills close to villages: as a result, women can run the mills themselves, women and girls spend less time walking to and from the mills, freeing the girls to go to
Poole Soroptimist Juanita Byrne-Quinn has pledged to water ski 12 miles over the summer for the Bournemouth Churches Housing Association (BCHA) fund-raising initiative, Miles for Hope, This appeal is raising funds for a specialist support worker to help human trafficking survivors transit successfully to a normal, safe life. Although Juanita has skied most of her life, at the age of 81, her pledge is no mean feat. A member of the British Disabled Water Ski Association, Juanita will complete this challenge over six sessions at the Ellingham Lake Water Ski Club between now and September 2014. The Miles for Hope challenge is open to all. BCHA’s target is a total of 4831 pledged miles. Why 4831? This is the furthest distance that any of the human trafficking victims in their care has been trafficked, a young girl called Hope from China. And the great thing about Miles
Soroptimist Pauline Monk is the Dorset Venus Awards 2014 Influential Woman Winner. Poole Soroptimists are incredibly proud of their award-winner member. We can think of no better way to sum up the reasons why Pauline deserves her winning place than the words of Amanda Taylor from VW Breeze, sponsors of the Influential Woman category: “Wow, well this is all very daunting and unlike on all previous occasions I have been thrust into this limelight, this time I have decided NOT to wing it! As I’ve shared with some of you previously, Breeze are delighted to be the associate sponsor of such a unique award ceremony that recognises the massive contribution that women make both directly and indirectly into the business world. I am personally thrilled to be here and involved with this crucial recognition of women in the business world and couldn’t be happier to
What a great time we had – all thanks to our wonderful hostesses, Barbara and Kay. Happy moments captured by Carol’s camera.
It is Christmas Eve and ‘Rose,’ a woman in a red dress, awakes to find that she has no memory of who or where she is. As she gradually weaves the threads of memory together, a dark and violent picture begins to emerge. Compelled to leave for fear of her life Rose begins to pack… but it’s dark outside and the house is full of strange noises. Will she escape, before her attacker returns? Or is he still in the House? A packed house in the Harlequin Theatre in Redhill on 29 April 2014 watched Certain Curtain Theatre Company’s production of LADY IN RED. It combined superb dialogue, a compelling plot, inspired performance and evocative colours to create an unforgettable experience – a journey through one woman’s attempts to leave an abusive relationship. Graham Cook, Deputy Chief executive of Reigate and Banstead Borough Council who
Two members of SI Gosport, Fareham and District, Regional PAC Officer Christine White and Pat Caulton met Simon Hayes, Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire, and were able to spend about an hour discussing women’s offending and other related matters. They explained that as Soroptimists they had a special interest in improving women’s lives and that is why they were undertaking this project to raise awareness of the causes and results of women being sent to prison. Women offenders comprise only five per cent of the prison population and women’s offending is different from men’s and should be treated differently. In view of the size of the problem, improving women’s treatment and their lives is achievable at a reasonable cost. There is cross-party support for changing the way women are treated but there appears to be no political will. “Now that Soroptimists are involved we
World Book Night is a celebration of reading and books which sees tens of thousands of passionate volunteers hand out specially chosen and printed WBN books in their communities to share their love of reading. By enlisting thousands of passionate book lovers around the country World Book Night reaches out to the millions of people in the UK who have yet to fall in love with reading in the hope of starting them on their reading journey. World Book Night is about giving books and encouraging reading in those who don’t regularly do so. But it is also about more than that: it’s about people, communities and connections, about reaching out to others and touching lives in the simplest of ways, through the sharing of stories. Once again SI Winchester members Jennifer Lauté and Carol Forse, were successful in their bid to be volunteers and this
Poole Soroptimists and the Purple Teardrop Campaign chose International Women’s Day to launch their latest initiative to raise awareness of human trafficking in Poole. With the full support of the Borough of Poole and maintenance contractors Churchill Contract Services, anti-trafficking posters are being placed in all the borough’s public toilets – providing information on the signs of trafficking, and telephone numbers to ring to report suspicions. Churchill’s representative says “Churchill is proud to partner with our client, Borough of Poole, in an initiative to support the Purple Teardrop Campaign”. A spokesperson for the Purple Teardrop Campaign and one of the instigators of the Posters into Toilets campaign says “It was Soroptimist Clubs in the north of England who first came up with the idea of displaying information in public toilets to both raise awareness of the crime and provide the Crimestoppers number
