The 21 Sep is the International Day of Peace – an important date in the Soroptimist Calendar, but September was anything but peaceful for the St Albans and District Soroptimists!
Club Meeting 8 Sep – the first Club meeting after the summer break is always busy and this one was no exception! It’s always a special event when we welcome a new member to the Club. Helen Byrne introduced Gill Arupke. and welcomed her as a member with these words (click here to download) Introduction to Gill Arukpe Sep 25 . Gill inspired us all when she spoke at the June Region meeting https://sigbi.org/london-chilterns/jun25 and we look forward to a bright Soroptimist future for our new “sister”. Gill is pictured here with Helen. Gill Arupke was awarded her MBE in 2024 in recognition of her 46-year career in the charity sector. Gill has run two women’s refuges, worked for Shelter for 17 years where she championed the rights of homeless individuals. She continued this work at Novas Scarman Group and then at Turning Point, focusing on mental health and substance abuse support. Her first CEO role was at Penrose Options in 2009 which demonstrated her leadership for social justice and community development. In 2014, as the founding CEO of the Social Interest Group, an innovative organisation that supports a wider network of charities in their mission to provide essential services to vulnerable people. Gill has “officially” retired, but watch this space!
Katelyn Lenander; International Justice Mission – We were then introduced to Katelyn Lenander who is a Politics and International Relations Student at UCL. She has recently completed an internship with the International Justice Mission https://www.ijm.org/ and she gave us an interesting insight into the organisation and the work that they do. Much of their work covers the prevention of and the rescuing of victims of sexual exploitation and the trafficking of young people. It therefore very much aligns with our own interests. It is the largest anti-slavery organisation in the world founded in 1997. They work in 19 countries and have a 4 step Protection model
- Bring people to safety
- Hold criminals to account
- Strengthen justice systems
- Protect people from abuse
We were shocked to learn that the UK is the 3rd largest country in the viewing of child pornography and that here as many as 7% of men admit to viewing it.
Actions that Katelyn suggested we could take include:
Writing to our MPs to encourage a campaign to include a device to prevent downloading of pornographic and other sexual materials which show abused children at the manufacturing stage of mobile phones.
Encourage people to use the Safe Net Blocking service to ensure abusive material is blocked on children’s phones.
Support action by Jess Phillips, the Safeguarding Minister
Watch a documentary with James Blake – Hunting the online sex predators which was shown on BBC3.
Katelyn explained that she was totally inspired by the organisation and as a result, next month she will be joining an expedition of 10 people who will be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and is hoping that sponsorship and donations will enable her to reach a target of £3k. There was a short discussion where Gill mentioned the scheme at Luton Airport and questions were asked about funding and education. Katelyn showed details of her Just Giving page https://www.justgiving.com/page/katelyn-lenander-climb. Members were able to donate in exchange for some delicious brownies Katelyn had made which they enjoyed during the coffee break. The Club also made a donation.
Diamond Education Grant – https://sigbi.org/what-we-do/our-charities/deg/ our Member Ameeta Sabharwal then spoke to us about the Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland Diamond Education Grant (DEG). Ameeta is a Trustee of the charity. It was appropriate to talk about this as it was International Literacy day and across the world 739m people lack literacy skills according to UNESCO. The DEG aims to help women and girls who for whatever reason have been unable to access or complete their education ,who wish to to update their skills after employment breaks or to acquire new skills to improve their opportunities for employment and promotion. Awards are made to help towards the cost of course fees or books/equipment, not for living expenses.
The grant is widely publicised and there is a prescribed application process from which the recipients are carefully selected. The grant is paid to the institution and not to the individual. Ameeta talked about the funding. The DEG was founded in 1972 and has significant investments which produce some income, each member of SIGBI in the UK contributes (just) 50p from their membership subs, it receives some legacies and they are also raising funds through the Recycling for Good Causes. The DEG is keen to increase the number of grants they can make and are therefore trying to raise more funds https://sigbi.org/what-we-do/our-charities/deg/. Ameeta was selling ‘diamond’ lanyards for mobile phones during the coffee break. As a result £52.50 was transferred to the DEG.
Abbey Theatre Charity Event 11 Sep – we were offered the charity night at short notice. Thanks to our amazing supporters and the generosity of the theatre we made a fabulous £800 for the SAHWR Refuge!
Litter-Pick Sat 20 Sep – Helen Byrne (pictured here) and Barbara Saunders did a litter-pick in Chiswell Green Lane. They collected 5 recycling and 4 landfill bags. 5 NO2 gas canisters, a battery, 2 vapes & assorted flooring, wood and metal.
The “Nosh n Natter” evening social was held on 22 Sep – at Sauté Restaurant in St Albans – 8 Members had a lovely evening getting to know each other better in an informal setting – making friends with like-minded women is an important part of being a Soroptimist.