Image: Woman votes in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 2014 (UN Photo/Fardin Waezi) Afghanistan is waiting to hear the outcome of last month's presidential election, with an official audit of all votes underway to determine the winner. For the first time in Afghanistan‘ s history, power will be democratically transferred through

  Image: Danish Soroptimist Governors and volunteers at the SI stand From 12-19th June, Soroptimists from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden were among nearly 20,000 participants at the Nordic Forum, a conference marking the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in Malmoe, Sweden. Soroptimist International President Ann Garvie and SI Europe

  Every year, on Human Rights Day (December 10) the President of Soroptimist International invites all Soroptimists to join her in supporting one Appeal to improve the lives of women and girls. In December 2013, President Ann Garvie launched the See Solar, Cook Solar Appeal, which will support projects around

  Image: Sujatha Balakrishnan outside the historic Apollo Theatre in New York Last week, we shared a blog from UN Rep Angelina Akhvlediani about attending the Beijing+20 launch event in New York. Also attending the event on 26 June was Sujatha Balakrishnan, Immediate-Past-President of SI Bangalore (India), who was on

  Image: Participants, including UN Rep Bette Levy (centre), who helped organise the NY launch event Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the historic Fourth World Conference on Women, where 189 governments adopted the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a visionary blueprint that set out steps

  Image: Soroptimists raise awareness of domestic abuse at Curitiba airport With the eyes of footballing nations on Brazil, currently hosting the World Cup, this week’s SoroptiVoice blog looks at some of the work that the 31 Brazilian Soroptimist clubs are doing to tackle violence against women. As in many

  Image: Janet Hodgson (left) speaking to Angelina Jolie at the London Summit this week This week, Soroptimists are taking part in the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London, the largest ever gathering brought together to address this key issue. It is a high-profile event and

  Image: Nigerian Soroptimists are continuing to call for the safe return of the abducted schoolgirls The world has rightly been focussed on more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram on 15 April from a school in the northeastern village of Chibok in Borno state.  Over a month

5th June is World Environment Day,  a key day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment. To mark this occasion, this week's blog comes from one of Soroptimist International's Representatives to the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi, Dr Alice Odingo. A Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography

  On Tuesday, a Pakistani woman was killed by her relatives outside Lahore High Court for marrying against their wishes. Farzana Parveen was attacked with bricks and sticks as she arrived at the court and died at the scene.  In this special SoroptiVoice blog, Talat Pasha of Soroptimist International Karachi