Life-coaching in Iceland, school stationery in Madagascar, condoms in Kenya and books in Trinidad and Tobago; here are pictures of just a few of the recently-reported actions that Soroptimists have taken around the world to educate, empower and enable women and girls.  You can read more about the projects below.

 

A sale of second-hand clothes, household goods and books organised by SI Penang (Malaysia) helped to encourage environmentally responsible shopping and raise funds for the club’s Education Fund to assist school leavers in vocational training.

SI Chaguanas (Trinidad & Tobago) purchased books to help a young woman pursue higher education

Working with a local charity, Esther Community Resources, which provides food and emergency support to families in financial difficulties, SI Central Birmingham (UK) collect donated food from shoppers at a local supermarket. 

SI Milimani (Kenya) and SI Witten-Rhur (Germany) worked together to supply condoms to a health clinic in Nairobi, which provides low-cost reproductive health services for low-income women

SI Iceland organised seminars with a "personal branding coach", to help girls and young women develop their self-confidence.

Members of SI Phoenix (USA) collected and purchased items like deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo and socks, which were assembled into fun, reusable bags for homeless teen girls entering a programme run by Tumbleweed Youth Centre.

SI Antananarivo Mandrosoa (Madagascar) give school stationery to pupils at public primary school before they sit their first exams. Also pictured is a conference organised by the club on deforestation and solar cooking.

One of the newest SI Clubs, chartered in 2012, SI Kodaikanal (India) worked with students of the local International School to hand out garbage bags and leaflets to visitors to the town, which is popular with visitors, encouraging them not to leave garbage. The club are also working to educate local women who work as rag pickers on the importance of garbage sorting, empower them with the knowledge on how to sort the garbage and enable them to earn from this recycling work.

Action, Advocacy and Awareness Raising

There are around 3000 Soroptimist clubs around the world, all working to promote womens’ rights in their local communities and beyond through action, advocacy and awareness-raising.  Working across the world in over 120 countries, clubs undertake a huge range of projects depending on local need. However, all serve the following objectives:

to increase access to formal and non-formal learning opportunities.

to improve access to economic empowerment and sustainable opportunities for the employment of women.

to eliminate violence against women and girls and ensure women’s participation in conflict resolution.

to ensure women and girls have food security and access to the highest attainable standard of health care.

t o address the specific needs of women and girls by improving environmental sustainability, and mitigating effects of climate change and disasters.

 

These actions were all reported by clubs on the Project Focus Report database, which enables SI to track club activities across the globe and monitor the collective impact of Soroptimists worldwide. Find out more about Soroptimist clubs around the world.