Members of SI Wakefield along with members of sister clubs from across Yorkshire came together at a fundraising dinner to mark International Womens Day recently. The event was held on the 17th March at the Cedar Court Hotel Wakefield and raised £8,000 which will be used to support Tasibeh Girls School in Pindi, Pakistan. The school is located in a very poor region of Pakistan and now educates over 100 girls and provides additional practical and financial support for many of their families. The school was set up and is supported by women from across the communities in Rotherham and South Yorkshire led by Khalida Luqman and her family.
Local author Marina Lewycka was the guest speaker at the dinner. Marina is best known for her novel ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’, which sold over a million copies in the UK alone. She has donated short stories to Oxfam and Amnesty International and is trustee of a little charity called ‘Counterpoints Arts’ which is about promoting refugee and migrant artists, and encouraging them to tell their migration stories through the arts. Marina was herself born in a refugee camp in Germany in 1946 and moved to England with her family when she was about a year old. Marina talked about her life and read extracts from her writings on the evening and has a new book due to published in April.
