For the 16 Days of Activism against gender based violence, starting 25th November to 10th December, Soroptimists
everywhere were asked to #OrangetheWorld. Each of the 16 Days we celebrate marks a step towards women’s rights and a safe space for them. Soroptimist International believes that women’s rights are human rights and through our work in the communities we work with that objective.
Beginning with the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women on 25th November, Soroptimists follow UN Days to transform lives of women and girls. We rally against Child Marriages, Human Trafficking, Modern Day Slavery, Rape, Sexual Exploitation, Female Genital Mutilation, and Sexual Harassment at Workplace and in support of Human Rights Defenders . On 10th Dec the last day, we honour the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each day is a call for action and provides a focus for our projects. Commemorating these days are opportunities to create public awareness about what needs to change, to prevent it from happening in the first place at local, national, regional and international levels.
Lockdown and tiers severely hampered our efforts to Orange the World. However, Soroptimists of SI Widnes rose to the challenge and came up with some novel ways to Orange our own particular piece of the world, which were shared daily on Facebook throughout the 16 day period to raise awareness of the campaign. This included getting Merseyflow to light up the bridge in orange on the first night, tying orange ribbons on posts and baking and stitching. Even Rollo, Yvonne’s dog, joined in! 
