SI/E Seminar: "THERE WAS HOPE IN THEM"

Soroptimist International Club Krakow Galicja
invites to the seminar:

"THERE WAS HOPE IN THEM.
- Women at the time of war and occupation and their difficult choices"

Place and Date: Krakow, Oswiecim (Auschwitz), April 23rd-25th 2010.

Aims: Learn, understand, communicate - save the historic remembrance and truth for future generations.
- Broadening the knowledge and raising awareness of the members of Soroptimist International.
- Building ties in today’s Europe basing on the experience of the war and occupation generation.
- Showing women’s attitudes in the inhumane world.
- Paying tribute to the Holocaust victims.
- Showing collective historical memory as heritage, which should be the source of reflection and the ground for educating young generations.
- Using the dialogue in the spirit of tolerance.

Project Realisation:
The project implies the meeting of women, associated in the European and World Clubs of Soroptimist International, in Krakow; combined with a seminar (study visits, discussion panel, meeting with authors, concert, exhibition).

Our initiative is aimed at women who are interested in learning the truth behind the events of World War II in the area of Poland. Historical truth is manipulated much too often. The witnesses of the past events, including the generation of children who were born during the war, are passing away. Therefore, women who witnessed past events have been invited to the conference to share their memories with us. The historical memory contained in the fates of individual people is very suggestive and it gives us an opportunity to empathize with them and form our own judgment on the problem. We hope that we will be able to communicate and show that the experience of war can help us overcome our contemporary, worldly problems or face various adversities. It will help us believe that people are able to unite against evil.

We want these saved memories to contribute to the development of humanistic attitudes. In the period of moral evil, when many women were victims of inhuman deeds (medical experiments, rapes, murders of the innocent), women also played an important role. For them life was, unquestionably, the most important value. Having saved and given the gift of life, they were becoming the carriers of dignity and guaranteed survival. They could forgive, overcome their hatred, nurse hope.

The seminar participants associated in Soroptimist clubs often try to find for themselves new social challenges and missions. Sharing the knowledge on the experience of women in extreme war conditions, we want to boost their motivation and support their faith in the belief that every activity to help others, in every historical context has a profound meaning.

Seminar Program:

Friday, 23rd April 2010
• Arrival, Accommodating participants
• Visiting Krakow under the banner of Krakow as a meeting place of many cultures
• Opening the seminar in Galicja Museum:
• Speech by the Representative of Galicia Jewish Heritage Institute
• Dignity saved… -Meeting with exceptional women, history witnesses:
- Roma Ligocka – a writer, painter and the author of ”The Girl in the Red Coat”, the prototype of the figure of a girl in the film “Schindler’s List” by Steven Spielberg;
- a woman awarded the title: Righteous among the Nations of the World;
and
- the Survivor
• Dinner
• Late Evening Walk in Kazimierz – the Jewish District of Krakow

Saturday, 24th April 2010
State Museum Auschwitz -Birkenau in Oswiecim:
• Visiting the camp in Auschwitz and the camp in Birkenau
• Women’s camp stories – meeting with a Museum director
• Lunch
Maximilian’s Centre in Harmeze, Franciscan Monastery
• visiting the exhibition: - Labyrinths of Memory, works by Marian Kolodziej, an ex Auschwitz camp prisoner depicting camp life and experience.
• Man in the presence of evil - discussion
Galicja Museum:
• Dinner
• Song koncert by Jaga Wronska, an artist of Loch Camelot

Sunday, 25th April 2010
A Walk in Krakow:
• Podgorze – places connected with Krakow’s ghetto (“The Pharmacy under the Eagle” - a supply and contact spot for the Jews living in the ghetto, Oscar Schindler’s Enamelware Factory)
• Sightseeing
• Lunch
• Free time
• Optional - Temples and Cemeteries of Kazimierz

Seminar costs:
Registration fee - 270,00 euro (program costs: guides, consecutive translation, entrance fees, transport, meals – lunches, dinners)
Accommodation approx. - 80,00 euro per night x 3 nights = 240,00 euro

We would like to ask the ladies interested in the seminar to confirm their participation by 15th January 2010 by sending an e-mail to the following address: klubgalicja@gmail.com

Animated Climate Talks: Voices from COP15

The Little Mermaid laments the COP15 outcome

The Little Mermaid laments the COP15 outcome. Members of the tcktcktck coalition of more than 15 million people today called "Climate shame" on heads of state in Copenhagen.

source: http://www.greenpeace.org

Anna Tibaijuka / Sanitation in the Urban Millennium / Part 1

Anna Tibaijuka / Sanitation in the Urban Millennium / PART 1 from Soroptimist Europe on Vimeo.

Anna Tibaijuka express her thoughts about sanitation issues at the Soroptimist International of Europe Water Congress, held in Amsterdam, 2009.

Water is life, Sanitation is dignity, and unfortunately for the majority of humankind, this dignity is simply not there.

Anna Tibaijuka is the Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN-HABITAT.

(www.unhabitat.org)

soroptimisteurope.org
soroptimistsgoforwater.nl

webclips by buzzmedia.net

Soroptimists of Saratoga celebrate 30 years of providing the ‘best for women’

By MAREESA NICOSIA, The Saratogian

Click to enlarge

Soroptimists (from left) President-elect Joan Gerhardt, former President Susan Van Raalte, current President Jovanka Harrison and former President Mary Huber display an award the Saratoga club received in honor of its accomplishments. (ED BURKE/The Saratogian)

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Loosely translated from Latin, the term “Soroptimist” means “best for women.”

The phrase is a benchmark for success used by Soroptimist International of Saratoga County, which is marking its 30th anniversary as the local chapter of the professional women’s service club.

“We work to improve the lives of women and girls locally and throughout the world,” said 2009-10 club president Jovanka N. Harrison, a Saratoga Springs resident and research specialist for the New York State Cancer Registry.

They do it by raising money, contributing funds and rolling up their sleeves, providing public service in a spirit of camaraderie.

In the 2008-09 year, the club raised more than $24,000, the majority of which was distributed to nonprofit organizations and award recipients, including female heads of households pursuing an undergraduate degree.

For the past four years, the local club and Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Services of Saratoga County have been working together to give women the tools to obtain financial and legal independence through a free eight-week program called Project Hope and Power. Soroptimist members volunteer as program facilitators and mentors, and also baby-sit for the children of the women attending the classes.

Harrison, who joined the club in 2004, said her aim as president in 2010 is to make a greater impact on the community through the club’s ongoing signature service projects and by surpassing fundraising levels.

The two major annual fundraisers are the Cabin Fever luncheon, which will next feature Virginia G. Drachman, author of “Enterprising Women: 250 Years of American Business,” on Feb. 6; and the Secret Gardens Tour on the second Sunday of July.

A longtime member and former chairwoman of the Secret Gardens Committee is Saratoga Springs resident Mary Caroline Powers, who has been a Saratoga Soroptimist member since the club’s second year.

“I felt very strongly that I needed to engage in the civic life of the community that I was living in and raising my children in, and this was a wonderful way to do that,” said Powers, who joined the club after giving birth to her third child, who is now a married mother of two.

Powers is vice president for communications and government relations for Empire State College. She and Harrision are among about 60 business and professional women in the local club, which meets monthly for dinners and programs at the Saratoga Golf and Polo Club and distributes funding to dozens of local organizations that help women and girls. Members pay dues, attend monthly meetings, serve on committees and contribute at least 12 hours of service each year.

Soroptimist members come from a spectrum of professions — they include attorneys, business owners, members of academia, fitness instructors, financial advisers, executives of nonprofits and newspaper editors. They range in age from their mid-20s to late 60s and they include retirees, CEOs, grandmothers and young mothers. Internationally, the club counts 95,000 members in 1,400 clubs throughout 120 countries.

“Any woman who is willing to give back to the community and who has the time and the resources can become a Soroptimist,” Harrison said.

The Project Hope and Power has become a keynote program of Saratoga Soroptimists. It teaches skills like resume writing, interviewing for a job, establishing credit and managing money. The objective is to help women break free from abusive relationships.

“It gives them the emotional, analytical, financial and practical skills to venture out on their own,” Harrison said. “What’s rewarding is to see the development, the strengthening of their self-esteem during the training. It gives them the things that a lot of us take for granted.”

Harrison said the program has served about 40 local women a year since its inception four years ago. It has received acknowledgement by Soroptimists at the national and international levels in the form of $10,600 in grants. The club has also received requests to teach other Soroptimist chapters how to start their own Project Hope and Power programs, she said.

“It’s about what we can do to make a difference,” she said, adding that as a Soroptimist and a world citizen, she encourages young women to “break any ceilings that may exist.”

Soroptimist public service goes well beyond local borders. Members have been responsible for a clean water project in Mexico and introducing legislation to the United Nations about abortion rights. They have been increasing public awareness about sexual trafficking. And local members like the late Betsy Davis were in the forefront of efforts to speak out against female genital mutilation, Powers said.

“I don’t think another club would have necessarily taken up these issues,” Powers said.

She described the club’s founding members, including first president Sondra Silverhart, second president Martha Margolis and third president Linda Toohey as “cracker jacks” — intelligent, energetic, influential, fun women who were leaders in the business community.

Charter member Lisa Schroeder-Bevis, who joined the club at age 23, shortly after opening the Clothes Horse store on Broadway, said the women were connected through their desire to improve the quality of life for other women and children, and they had the resources and motivation to get things done.

The formation of their female network took place in a social and cultural environment much different than today’s.

“In ’79 and ’80, the community was just beginning to brush itself off and move forward. It was not the community it is today,” Powers said. Women were not allowed to join Rotary, Kiwanis or Lions clubs in those decades. Now, they are; yet Soroptimists still has a special appeal for women, including young professionals.

“The sharing of ideas about social concerns, and doing activities that make a difference about those social concerns is a real bonding experience,” Powers said.

For more information about Soroptimist International of Saratoga County, go to www.saratogasoroptimists.org.

Cast your vote in the Angry Mermaid Award!

Vote for the company or lobby group you think is doing the most to sabotage effective action on climate change.

The Angry Mermaid Award has been set up to recognise the perverse role of corporate lobbyists, and highlight those business groups and companies that have made the greatest effort to sabotage the climate talks, and other climate measures, while promoting, often profitable, false solutions.

The award is named after the iconic mermaid statue in Copenhagen - where crucial climate talks will take place this December. The mermaid is angry about the destruction being caused by climate change.

Tell us who you think is the biggest culprit by casting your vote online now!

(info from: Friends of the Earth International www.foei.org )

The Soroptimists Commit Themselves to Water

WATER, A NATURAL PROPERTY and COMMUNAL INHERITANCE
A PUBLIC PROPERTY

• Sensitive to the universal principle of water, the source of life

• Conscious that it concerns one of the crucial stakes in this 21st century for the future of humanity and life on the planet

• Convinced that its increasing short supply in a quantitative and qualitative level, due to global warming, gives it even more a character of communal property, and public world heritage.

WE ASK

• Respect for this essential property, indispensable to the life of all human beings or living species.

• Guaranteed access to all to this precious property and its recognition as a human right.

For this dramatic situation in terms of food, access to water, health, for three billion impoverished human beings should finally be taken into account.

• Participation of every citizen to its safeguarding, protection, valorisation in the interest of all and future generations.

Because it is unacceptable that access to drinkable water is still denied to more than a billion and a half people, that more than 2.6 billion have no access at all to sanitary facilities and that the measures taken at the present time to stop the devastation of the planet’s water resources still remain derisory.

In the light of the conclusions and the proposals formulated during the International Conference «Peace with Water» which was held in the European Parliament in Brussels on the 12th and 13th February

WE ASK

• the political powers engaged in the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change (UNFCCC) to support us legislatively and financially in order not to make water a source of conflict between populations, regions, riverside countries or transnational hydrographic basins.

WE EXPECT

• That the problematic of water should be put on the agenda of the COP 15 of Copenhagen in December 2009

• That the « Treaty of Copenhagen » should approve of the principle of starting a process of definition and approval of a World Protocol on Water for the period 2010-2012.

• That the Conference of Copenhagen should recognise the urgency of a Political World Agreement on Water under the aegis of the United Nations and affirms the necessity for the international community to have at their disposal an effective action and world cooperation instrument such as the « United Nations Water Authority ».

SI St Helena Celebrates 25th Birthday

Soroptimist International

Why do 93,000 women in 3,000 clubs from 125 countries belong to Soroptimist International? Because they want to make a difference in today's world.

Soroptimist International is a world wide organisation for women in management and the professions, working through service projects to advance human rights and the status of women.

The general structure of Soroptimist International is shown in the diagram below:

The Mission Statement for Soroptimist International is:

Through international partnerships and a global network of members, Soroptimists inspire action and create opportunities to transform the lives of women and girls by: advocating for equity and equality; creating safe and healthy environments, increasing access to education. Developing leadership and practical skills for a sustainable future.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has" - Margaret Mead

Soroptimist International of Helena

Soroptimist International of Helena is one of 17 clubs in the Region of Western Australia and is a member of Soroptimist International of Australia and part of the Federation of the South West Pacific.

Our club was chartered on the 14 April 1984 with Dr Sheila Lungley as the Charter President.

The club logo depicting a vine leaf was designed by Charter member Josephine McMullan. The objective of the design was to produce an attractive, meaningful insignia at nominal cost.

The current President wears the club insignia to meetings and important functions. The design incorporates the blue Helena River flowing over a green enamel vine leaf. This depicts the area where our members live and the major industry of grape growing and wine making in the Swan Valley.

This is surrounded by a raised silver octagon, the centre of which is serrated to form the vine leaf. It is inscribed with the words "Soroptimist International of Helena".

Soroptimist International of Helena Club Jewel and Chain of Office

The insignia hangs on a Chain of Office which lists all the previous Presidents and the term that they served.

For 2009 our President is Kim Kennedy with Rosalie Gordon as President Elect.

Swiss Clubs Bad Ragaz and Chur in Mali

Swiss Clubs Bad Ragaz and Chur in Mali with Roswitha Ott, SI / E Project Manager Africa and Club Bamako Lumière and Club Bamako Espoir

Wonderful meetings in a colourful country

Help for the people in Mali

Wonderful meetings in a colourful country

6 women of the Swiss Clubs Bad Ragaz and Chur could take the possibility to accompany Roswitha Ott, SI / E Project Manager Africa, on her journey to Mali. Once not only listen to Roswitha’s report on the projects in progress and on the new plans for the future, but visit an African country ourselves and see, what problems people, and especially women and children, daily has to face, was a deeply touching experience.

At November the 5 we arrived in Bamako, the capital city of Mali, and were warmly welcomed by the sisters of the two clubs in the city; Club Bamako Lumière and Club Bamako Espoir.

In the following three days we visited the villages of Diffémou, Sanankorobougou, Soukoulabougou, Bla and Tallo and saw impressive achieved work.

In Diffémou and Sanankorobougou we saw the new built wells. They go down to 23 meters, are functioning with India-pumps and work very well. Tablets on the wall of the wells tell the names of the financing Clubs and single persons.

In the small village of Diffémou we also visited the school with its 3 classrooms. Unfortunately the school is not in a good shape. Only two years ago the building was repaired as best as possible, but the rooms are already visibly dilapidated and the school is too small for the growing group of about 300 children. Happily the new school-toilets function very well and they are clean.

On Saturday, we had the honour to inaugurate the new wonderful well in Soukoulabougou. This new well in this small village, about 2 hours to drive from Bamako, will become a model for other wells in the region. It is also around 23 meters deep, well protected, with two water places for animals and in the Soroptimist colours. To build the well cost about 5’000 Euro and was financed by a couple in the area of the Club Bad Ragaz.

The sisters of the Club Bamako Espoir, which their work on the scene, were helping enormous that this well has been built so well.

In all visited villages we were very impressed, how good the wells are maintained and how estimate the people that help. A well in their area makes live much easier and the clean water supports health. Every visit was accompanied by dancing and music, by gifts and speeches from different persons. What colourful, friendly meetings!

Back in Bamako we visited the project of the school of the nuns of Marie Immaculée, where 22 girls with difficult backgrounds can get basic school instructions and an apprenticeship as tailors in a three year program. The school few is payed by Swiss godmothers. Roswitha Ott is looking year for year that it is possible for the young girls to continue their studies. After a sight in to the lessons, Roswitha Ott had the pleasure to announce the opening of next step of the project, a tailor studio named “Salon de l’ Espoir Brigitte”.

The first two girls who finished the three year program will have an income from their work in the salon.

Another highlight of our journey was the afternoon in the school of Talo. As we arrived, the whole area was gathered under the trees in front of the school. Again there were thanks on both sides, music and dance and at the end our Club-President, Martha-Maria, had to kick off the traditional football-match between the eldest students and the teachers.

Later on our journey, on the way to the sisters of the Club Alliance in Timbuktu, we visited several villages of different ethnic groups. It was always very impressive to see the people on her daily activities, to see all the children and take a short look into a different world. A world that often seems cheerful and happy but in which the poverty and the lack of perspectives are nearly always present. Above all, the children, standing around, having no possibility to go to school, begging, being without any elder person who visibly care about them, filled our hearts and brought several questions and discussions.

After nearly 1000 kilometers from Bamako to Timbuktu; through fields of millet, zones with Baobab-trees, deep-green rice plants and bright-yellow steppe and endless open countryside we were again very well welcomed by the sisters in Timbuktu. There, we visited first a school for children from poor families and could see how motivated the students are.

Later we walked through the legendary town of Timbuktu while Roswitha Ott saw other realised projects and studied new ones.

The Club of Alliance (Timbuktu/Mali) was chartered in 2006 and since then the Club has initiated a lot of projects and hast become a strong and active group.

We met the women of the Club for a very special dinner at the roof of Madame Aissa Baba Touré’s house. There was a lot of chattering and laughing between the women and some new bonds between Mali and Switzerland have started, this evening.

A big “Thank you” to Roswitha Ott who gave us the opportunity to join her and to see some of her work and also a big, colourful “Thank you” to all the women who accompany us during our journey!

6. Dec. 2009 / Barbara Gmünder

Safe Water for a Safe Life

Our Programme: Safe Water for a Safe Life

Water makes our Earth different from other planets. It is our best friend and our worst enemy.

Water is the source of life, billions of years ago life originated in the seas and we still spend the first nine months of our life in amniotic fluid.

The largest part of our planet is covered with water but only 0,6% is available for human consumption and that makes it a precious and non-renewable resource.

. The worldwide water crisis exists and is serious, it is not only a problem for regions traditionally considered as lacking in water resources, the water problem has become global from a quantitative as well as from a quantitative perspective. The world economy has exploited, wasted and polluted so much that in 2007, for the first time, the withdrawal of water resources in the world outweighed the capability of this resource to renew itself.

Without water no food, one of the consequences of global warming is progressive desertification of certain regions in Africa with resulting crop failure and famine.

We humans are as guilty for the impending water disaster as is climate change.

We need 2 liters of drinking water each day but in the Western world we use 2000 liters for the production of our food, every day. To produce 1kg of wheat 1000 liters is needed and for 1 kg of meat it takes 13,000 liters.

The small percentage of fresh water available for human use is distributed very unequally.

The amount of water used daily by an American is 400 liters, by a European 200 liters, an African can dispose of 30 liters or less, and 5 liters a day is the absolute minimum needed to survive.

To quote Kofi Annan: What is needed along with fresh water is fresh thinking. We need to learn how to value water.

Water is the source of life, of food, but water also kills: 8 million die from water-related illnesses every year, 15 deaths every minute and most of them young children. In Sub Saharan Africa the child mortality rate under the age of 5 is 157 per 1000 compared to 4.6 per 1000 in Western Europe.

The only way to change those figures is to make access to clean water and adequate sanitation an unalienable right of all but also to oblige all to preserve and conserve water resources.

The WHO estimates that 80% of all illnesses in the world can be attributed to unsafe water, lack of sanitation and poor hygiene. In 2002, diarrhea caused 1, 8 million deaths; in developing countries they are at the origin of 21% of childhood deaths under the age of five.

In highly developed and industrialized countries the health hazards are related to water pollution by industrial waste. All of us remember the ecological disaster that occurred when a big chemical plant dumped its waste into the Rhine. Even without incidents, our water is polluted by chemicals such as phosphates, nitrates and pcb; pcb or poly chloro biphenyl is very toxic, the biodegradation is slow and it accumulates in fat tissue. You can even find it in significant amounts in mother’s milk. In fact, our bodies are so polluted that it would be unwise for a cannibal to eat us!

We have talked about the problems, now let’s look at solutions.

What can we, as Soroptimists, do?

We can implement projects dealing with each of those problems, projects about:

· Access to water

· Water purification

· Fair distribution and management of water

· Sanitation with a gender balanced approach

· Hygiene and health care

· Industrial pollution

· Waste water treatment

· Education/awareness about water and the environment

· Capacity building for women in regard to water and sanitation initiatives

· Sustainable agriculture

· Awareness raising about climate change

Those are a few possibilities and all of them can be addressed as Awareness, Advocacy or Action projects and can be related to the 10 Program Focus Objectives.

During the first two years an extraordinary amount of projects were implemented, for the next two years I have high expectations and I strongly encourage the clubs to focus on the vital importance of

Safe Water for a Safe Life

Dr. Eliane Lagasse (SI/E President)

soroptimistsgoforwater.nl

soroptimisteurope.org

Roswitha Ott - Mali Visit - Photo's

Roswitha Ott - SI/E Project Manager Africa - Mali Visit

Cutting the ribbon in the name of the sponsor

School in Tombouctou

Tailoring at the School of the nuns of Marie Immaculéé

The new well in Koriomé near Tombouctou (Financed by SI/E)

The well of Soukoulabougou

Our girls in teis school financed by godmothers