Club projects
Each year the President selects a particular charity for support. This year it’s the NDCS- see the page about them for more details.
There are other projects that we support from year to year as we consider them in need of continuing support- these include
- Citizenship Awards (formerly: Youth in the Community Awards)
Our work with Cator Park School continues, with the award of book tokens or cheques to pupils aged 11-13 and 14-18, who’ve shown exceptional initiative, helped others or ‘gone the extra mile’.
- Dictionaries for Refugee Students
In cooperation with the local education authority, Beckenham Club supports refugee women learning English by providing them with English dictionaries and educational computer software.
- Refugee Support
Beckenham Soroptimists have been giving social and financial support to a young Ugandan woman through her senior school years and now at university.
- Blankets
Sewing/knitting evenings have resulted in blankets being sent to Eastern and Southern Africa, South Asia and the Balkans in partnership with the charity SMILE.
- Project SIerra - a Family and a Future
Like many other Soroptimist Clubs we are supporting this quadrennial Soroptimist International project, by raising money locally for initiatives giving vulnerable children in Sierra Leone a new life and new hope.
See the Project SIerra website for more details: http://www.projectsierra.com
- Speech and Drama Festival Awards
Both Beckenham and Bromley Festivals have sections for Speech and Drama; our Club awards cups for Speech at both Festivals
Fund raising in 2008/9 resulted in grants being made to the following organisations-
- Hamlin Fistula Clinic- £700
The club will be fund raising this year to help the Hamlin Fistula Clinic that helps women in Ethiopia who need surgery following female circumscision and child birth
- Abbeyfield Society- £300
Bromley Abbeyfield provides supported housing for older people who want to remain as independent as possible. The organisation needs to update and refurbish accommodation to meet new needs and expectations. We will be raising money to help with this.
- Mufindi water project - £400 See separate page for information