A recent meeting of Soroptimists from the 12 Midlands clubs was hosted by the Kidderminster Club. Around 80 members listened to an excellent presentation given by Reilly Dempsey who is Programme Director for Soroptimist International. Based in Cambridge, Reilly oversees the programme work of the 86,000 members in 124 countries. She spoke about the work reported in the Global Impact Report around the programme of 3Es - Educate, Empower and Enable. The current global focus is on Educate to Lead.

Reilly also provided an insight into how the work we do at local level feeds into the Global Impact Report used by our 21 Representatives in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Paris, Rome and Nairobi to lobby the United Nations under Soroptimist International's consultative status which it has held since 1948.

The Educate to Lead focus for our Federation of Great Britain & Ireland is in healthcare working in partnership with the international medical charity, Maternal & Childcare Advocacy International (MACI) - and its partner Advanced Life Support Group ( ALSG). The project is a three year fundraising challenge to save the lives of countless critically ill women, babies and children in the Gambia. A donation to MACI was made from the proceeds of the raffle held at the meeting.

Presentations were also given by local representatives of organisations who are partnered with Soroptimists: Fairtrade, Age UK, Save the Children, Girl Guiding and Handicap International. Sharing similar values, we all work for human rights for all and to improve the lives of women and children worldwide.

For more information on the partner organisations and Soroptimist International follow the links on www.sigbi.org or www.soroptimistinternational.org .

For more details regarding the activities and membership of the Kidderminster Club, please email on kidderminstersorop@gmail.com or look at our website link on www.sigbi.org