Introduction to our projects by Programme Director, Kay Richmond
Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland (SIGBI) is one of five Federations of Soroptimist International.
We all work to help improve the lives of women and girls worldwide, using our networks to deliver projects relevant in our own localities and universally. Many of the problems facing women and girls are the same everywhere, for example gender inequality, but there are particular problems in each continent, country, region and locality.
Our special status at the UN helps us to engage with UN entities as well as soroptimists worldwide.
Our current focus is helping to implement projects which work toward achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs – https://sdgs.un.org/goals). We do this through our own projects and working in partnership with others at home and abroad.
Our projects range from supporting local charities (e.g. women’s refuges) to those at country and international levels through our Federation’s countries and with the other Federations and their clubs.
In the UK we have a UK Programme Action Committee (UKPAC) to which all UK Regions and Clubs belong. They work on projects specifically based in the UK, such as our Women in Prisons project in conjunction with The Prison Reform Trust. More recently, UKPAC has been working on improving legal protection for survivors of domestic abuse within the Domestic Abuse Bill.
