Category: Blog Post

News and articles from Soroptimist areas of interest

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Soroptimist Leadership Institute

Submitted by Janet Gilmour, SI Victoria Westshore

This past year Soroptimist International of Victoria Westshore has introduced a new program Soroptimist Leadership Institute (SLI)

What is SLI – SLI offers women and businesses the opportunity to sponsor candidates to gain leadership skills through Soroptimist membership.

How SLI works – candidates apply to the club for the SLI. Their membership to the club and fees to attend at least one Region event, Conference or Retreat, are covered. The sponsors, if a business, receives recognition on our social media, our website and our logo and information to display on their website.

What SLI members give – This woman has the time to commit to attending all our meetings, volunteering on at least one of our committees, participates in the 5 leadership development sessions held throughout the year on Zoom, meets with either their sponsor or a Soroptimist twice in the year to discuss what they are learning and their thoughts on their future.

SLI benefits – as all of you know, being a Soroptimist is an amazing experience. As a Soroptimist, the SLI member contributes to the empowerment of women and girls across the globe. She gains leadership skills and contacts to carry throughout her life. She gains knowledge of the plight of women around the world and how women can come together to be the voice and strength these women need to fight for their rights.

What the Club receives – through this program the club gains the membership of an amazing woman, for at least one year, who is dedicated to volunteering and community exposure. The Soroptimist Leadership Institute is a venue for clubs, mentors and SLI members to empower and educate women and girls.

Introducing Vanshika Awasthi – our inaugural SLI member is a ROCKSTAR

“We should listen carefully to the soft, faint voice in our inner mind. It advices one to move forward with a healthy mindset and to resist the temptation of misdeeds.” Vanshika Awasthi

#SILeadershipInAction #SIVictoriaWestshore #wcsoroptimist

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A World of Friends – Jan 29, 2022

Soroptimist International Friends and Friendship Links

Submitted by Jaynne Carr, SI Edmonton

Many thanks to WCR Governor Suzanne, Friendship Chair Darlene Jamieson and Zoom host Colleen Penrowley for organizing such an awesome event. Hilary Laidler spoke about designing her beautiful President’s Appeal pins that have supported so many appeals and Kate Moore outlined the 25 year history and amazing stories of the Chatline.

For SIEdmonton it was a delight that members of two of our friendship Link Clubs, SIDnepropetrovsk and SIBath were able to attend and share in this amazing inaugural event. President Nataliya from SIDnepropetrovsk sent us some of her screenshots (below) and shared a little about her club. Other club members were also on the zoom and together expressed their appreciation for being invited and the heartfelt supportive wishes coming their way.

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We have been Friendship Link Clubs since 2015. A few years ago we enjoyed watching a Christmas concert performed at an orphanage that SIDnepropetrovsk supports in Eastern Ukraine as one of their projects.  Diane Steel from SIBath was also very pleased to have attended these presentations and the event itself.

SIEdmonton is honoured to have several long standing formal and informal Friendship Links with Soroptimist clubs in all Five Federations. Over the years we have exchanged correspondence, program information and gifts. Wonderful opportunities to meet in person at Soroptimist Conferences and Conventions or arranged travel connections are the best!

Lunch with Michiko, SI Nayoro, Japan and our newest, SI Albany, Western Australia

SIEdmonton and SI Bath have been Friendship Link Clubs for over 30 years. Members of our two clubs have meet in person in San Francisco, Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur. One year two members from SIBath were on a cross Canada tour by train and we were delighted to be able to entertain them on their stopover in Edmonton for several days with a dinner in their honour, luncheons and side trips based on their hobbies of history and birdwatching.

We hope that once again our two clubs and our other Friendship Link Clubs (SI Nayoro, SI Albany, SI Saitama, SI Budapest, SI Tororo, and SI Dnepropetrovsk will be able to meet in person – next time in Dublin! And of course, our international Soroptimist friends the world over. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

In the meantime, Zoom calls such as the one on Jan 29th, 2022 will connect us worldwide!

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Days for Girls Canada President to Participate as GEN 4 Panelist

Terry-Lynn Stone ~ President, Days for Girls Canada

Terry-Lynn was a registered nurse in the UK and – after staying home to help raise four daughters – she moved to Canada, went to university and later became the Editor in Chief of Alive magazine.

She moved to Kamloops in 2009 and was the Executive Director of the Kamloops Brain Injury Association.

Terry-Lynn first heard about Days for Girls at a Rotary conference and says she “was livid that girls could suffer so much for something a) we took for granted, and b) is a natural part of being a woman.” In November 2016 she started the Kamloops Days for Girls team with $1000 in seed money from the Kamloops Rotary.

She is now serving her second term on the Days for Girls Board after joining in 2018. Terry-Lynn says: “I am lucky enough to have taken part in three [Days for Girls product] distributions and each one has really touched my heart.”

Days for Girls Canada

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Meet Three More of Our Amazing GEN 4 Panelists

CARRINE CHAMBERS-SAINI – CEO & FOUNDER DIVA INTERNATIONAL INC.

CEO and Founder of Diva International, makers of the DivaCup, Carinne Chambers-Saini always knew that she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps, as both an entrepreneur and an advocate for women’s health. After graduating university, she joined forces with her mother to develop the DivaCup, a modern redesign of a concept from the 1930’s. They started Diva on a shoe-string budget from their kitchen table. Challenging a male-dominated industry, their product was often rejected as an unwanted threat to disposables.

Nineteen years later, DivaCup has taken menstrual cups mainstream and disrupted the industry. The DivaCup is now sold in over 40 countries.

Internationally, Diva has sold over 6.5million DivaCups to date. Carinne is a highly sought-after speaker and panelist, joining conversations all around the world on the state and future of the menstrual care industry. She has won multiple awards for her entrepreneurship and innovation, including EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year, RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award’s Woman of Influence of 2019, and was named Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.

NIKKI HILL – PRINCIPLE, EARNSCLIFFE STRATEGY GROUP

Nikki Hill is the Co-Chair of the United Way Period Promise campaign and the recipient of the 2020 Greater Vancouver Board of Trade Wendy McDonald Community Catalyst Award. .

NICOLE WHITE – FOUNDER, MOON TIME SISTERS

Make it stand out

Nicole White (she/her) is the founder of Moon Time Sisters, an Indigenous led project aimed at supporting northern and remote communities in Canada.  Since its inception in January 2017, they’ve expanded to have four provincial chapters that include Saskatchewan, Ontario, British Columbia, and Manitoba.  By the end of 2021, we project having sent two million menstrual products up to First Nations communities. 

Her paid work focuses on creating respectful, safe workplaces.  Nicole is a registered social worker and has worked in community for nearly two decades and focused her professional work on gender-based issues and engaging marginalized populations.  

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January 24 – United Nations International Day of Education – Changing Course, Transforming Education

Submitted by Melanie Kenny, SI Saskatoon

So many of us take the right to education for granted and so do our children – and thank goodness we can!    But many people don’t have access to education. For the fourth year in a row, the UN has stepped forward to raise a crucial topic – the importance of learning – by marking the International Day of Education on January 24.

 Some of us have had the opportunity to further the quality of our lives by taking advantage of educational opportunities. But, imagine for a moment, there was no opportunity to take advantage of.   Then go on to imagine how diminished your life would be without education. No fabulous children’s stories as you’re growing up to spark your imagination, possibly no ability to read at all.      How much we would have missed and would still be missing now.    Education helps us grow and learn about a world outside of our own immediate and limited experience and how critical that is for our own lives and the lives of those around us so that the world can be improved.   We learn, through education, the importance of listening to other people‘s ideas and points of view. We learn that maybe we’re not always right or perhaps we learn that we are right and should stick to our guns even if those around us don’t necessarily agree.  Education gives us the confidence to improve and change the world for the better.

The UN states that it has ‘a vision of education that ensures, justice, human rights and opportunities… and will allow us to better respond to emerging challenges and better address the interests of future generations. In the UN’s future of education report, it states ‘the future requires an urgent rebalancing or our relationships with each other, with nature as well as with technology that permeates our lives, bearing breakthrough opportunities while raising serious concerns for equity, inclusion and democratic participation.

How can this urgent rebalancing take place unless the world’s youth are educated? We are beginning in our own backyards with Soroptimist members continuing the splendid work we are doing with our Dream It Be It program, encouraging young women to become educated who may not have that type of support at home.   We are helping young women dream of building a more sustainable, inclusive and peaceful future as envisioned by the United Nations.  Our Soroptimist Clubs are imperative, through our Dream It Be It program, to changing the course and transforming the education of the young women in our communities.  Keep up the great work!

https://www.un.org/en/observances/education-day

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Meet Menstrual Equity Change Champion Sherri Smith

This is the second post about Soroptimist Western Canada Region’s upcoming virtual forum – Period Poverty and Public Policy – What Next?. – the fourth event in our Gender Equality Now series.

If you haven’t already checked out the first blog post, you can do so here.

Our region boasts a second FABULOUS change champion in the fight for menstrual equity.  Let’s meet panelist, Sherri Smith. 

Sherri Smith has been a Soroptimist since 1995 and a United Way volunteer since 1988.  She is the current president of Soroptimist International (SI) of Central Alberta. Professionally, she is a Chartered Professional Accountant working in finance in the town of Innisfail. 

At the beginning of 2021, SI Central Alberta received a grant from the Red Deer District Community Foundation and the Fund for Gender Equality. 

The club partnered with the United Way of Central Alberta to create the Period Promise pilot project. Four schools in the Red Deer Public School District were outfitted with dispensers in EVERY washroom and stocked with free menstrual products for a 15-month pilot.  Survey data is being gathered for future advocacy work. 

Now a passionate menstrual equity and gender equality advocate, Sherri loves to learn and connect with other menstrual equity organizations across the country and the world.  She also continues to educate others about period poverty and advocate for free access to menstrual products in all public spaces, including all schools. 

1.    What was the biggest obstacle you faced in getting free menstrual products in Central Alberta schools?

COVID 19!!!!!!  We had tremendous help from United Way BC in setting up everything for the pilot, the resources, the contacts, the surveys, support, etc.  We were very fortunate to receive the funding so that this pilot could proceed. Funding could be an obstacle for others who want to also do this pilot. We had cooperation from the school board and the support from the 4 schools to begin the pilot. This was still all happening during COVID in 2021.

When the dispensers and products arrived and were ready to be picked up by school staff to have them installed there was school shutdowns and going to online learning. Finally, they were installed with only 2 months remaining in the school year. The following school year still has the pilot operational until the end of the school year, but every lockdown causes students to not have access to products they may need.

 

 2.    What in your opinion was the deciding factor in getting it passed? 

Don’t know how to answer this one, as we couldn’t prevent COVID from happening and just had to have patience that the students would eventually be helped.  

3.    What can private citizens and volunteer organizations like Soroptimist do to encourage policymakers to adopt similar resolutions across the country? 

Talk about period poverty as much as you can, where you can. At meetings, groups, with councillors, school boards, etc. Participate and support donation drives and organizations helping to end period poverty. Walk the talk. And also hold people accountable, such as politicians. When you read that a period poverty initiative is happening, follow up later to make sure they are doing it. Keep checking back that they are actually doing what they said they would.  

 

4.    Do you have any other advice for menstrual equity advocates who are trying to make a difference in their communities? 

I would recommend educating yourself and finding ways to collaborate. Education, such as reading, scouring the internet, social media pages, etc.  Attend webinars and forums put on by other organizations. With more knowledge you are able to speak to the issue with those who don’t know. Collaborate with other advocates in your town or city – more voices = more power. Find out first what is needed in your community, don’t assume you know what is needed. It is best to check with organizations, etc. who deal with period poverty every day.

 

Thanks so much Sherri!  We are really looking forward to hearing you and the other panelists at Period Poverty and Public Policy – What Next? on February 5th from 1 to 4 PM PST.

 

 

 

 

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Join Us for Period Poverty and Public Policy – What Next?

Soroptimist International Western Canada Region is getting ready to host our fourth Gender Equality Now forum (GEN 4) on Saturday February 5th, 2022 from 1 to 4 pm PST.  The theme of GEN 4 is Period Poverty and Public Policy – What Next?  At this virtual forum we will be screening the film Pandora’s Box (courtesy of Diva International), with a Q&A featuring executive producer of the film and CEO of Diva International, Carinne Chambers-Saini.  In addition, we will be hosting a panel discussion featuring some of the top change champions in the fight for menstrual equity, and running breakout sessions for discussion. It’s a jam-packed event that anyone interested in menstrual equity should attend.

Tickets for this virtual event are available through Eventbrite

What is Period Poverty?

Period poverty refers to a lack of access to menstrual products, sanitation facilities and adequate education about reproductive health and menstruation. People who experience period poverty are unable to purchase menstrual products, preventing them from going to school, work, or participating in daily life. When menstrual products and information are unaffordable or unavailable, barriers to education, civic engagement and therefore gender equity are created. Period poverty is a significant issue for an estimated 500 million people worldwide, and it occurs everywhere. In fact, period poverty exists here in Canada and Soroptimists are part of a growing movement to address it.

 

Meet Menstrual Equity Change Champion Nancy McCurrach

Nancy has been a Soroptimist since 2014 and a Port Coquitlam City Councillor since 2018.  

This past December, Nancy was named as the 2021 United Way Labour Appreciation Award recipient for her work with gender equity; specifically, being the driving force on Port Coquitlam City Council behind providing free menstrual products in civic facilities. She has been an inspiring advocate for policy change and reducing the stigma around menstrual products.

1.    What was the biggest obstacle you faced in getting your resolution passed by Port Coquitlam City Council?

There were several obstacles that stood in the way for approving free menstrual products in civic facilities. One objection that I heard was that taxpayers would be responsible for the extra cost for menstrual products in facilities (just like toilet paper, soap, paper towel etc. that are already provided). In my situation I found that it was a couple of the men on council that wanted to sway the minds of other council members during the lively debate by saying they were all for menstrual equity, yet they believed proper process wasn’t followed, and that as a city we needed to not burden the taxpayers with downloading this expense onto them. During another Council meeting, one of the male Councillors had concerns about people taking more than one product. (?) It felt like two vocal males were trying to influence others by making it more about process than gender equity. 

 

2.      What in your opinion was the deciding factor in getting it passed?

It was thanks to Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, his progressive values, and our strong working relationship, that the motion got passed. During the discussion on process, he said that when a council member is as passionate about an issue such as I was about this one that he supports the council member. The mayor’s encouraging words swayed the holdouts and the motion passed – with the vote being five in favour two opposed. This motion was the one to be brought forth to the UBCM (Union of British Columbia Municipalities) convention. The aim was to put the associated cost out of the municipal purse into the provincial budget. I encourage everyone to consider sharing this motion Dr Selina Tribe created that I brought forth to the Province of BC with other Provinces to adopt (that have not something similar in place) in their respective provinces.

  

3.      What can private citizens and volunteer organizations like Soroptimist do to encourage policymakers to adopt similar resolutions across the country? 

I would encourage Soroptimist clubs and other volunteer organizations across Canada to unite and know that they don’t need to recreate the wheel, as one is already in motion.

There is a big way you can help:

Two significant resolutions that I created along with Dr. Selina Tribe: 1) Addressing Period Poverty in Canada, and 2) Updating Restroom Regulations have recently been adopted by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities as of September 2021, and both are significant steps. More needs to be done to have them enacted. The Honourable Marci Ien PC MP (Minister for Women and Gender Equity in the House of Commons) – has asked in her letter that is now with the House of Commons in Ottawa for action on both and a clear national approach rather than a patchwork solution.  

Please consider reaching out to provincial gender equity Ministers and the Federal gender equity Minister and write letters of support for the Period Poverty Plan and changing the Building and Updating Restrooms the Soroptimists Canada can consider to also endorse and resubmit to the Minister of Women and Gender Equity.

 

Other actions you can take are:

 o   Consider joining on to already adopted motions like those from Port Coquitlam city council.

 o   Advocating at City Council meetings and attending as delegations to request cities implement free menstrual dispensers and products in their civic washrooms: At least 50% of the population that votes are women or other people who menstruate.

 o   Advocate for a period poverty plan as well as a changing the building and Health and Safety Codes both Provincially and Federally.

 o   Reach out to City Councils and call each councillor before a vote to advocate for free products in civic facilities.

 o   Reach out to other organizations to amplify the message (e.g., Girl Guides Canada).

  

4. Do you have any other advice for menstrual equity advocates who are trying to make a difference in their communities? 

Host Period Product Drives at work or within the community to take away the sigma of periods: Reach out to other organizations and unite with an asset management lead (such as the United Way of the Lower Mainland – as they already have tons of data on record).

https://www.periodpromise.ca/

Host letter writing campaigns and send requests to support both resolutions on 1) Addressing Period Poverty in Canada, and 2) Updating Restroom Regulations to.

  • Ministry of Labour (who administer the provincial OHS regulations) 

  • Minster of Gender Equity (who administer the Provincial regulations

  • Federal Ministry of Labor (who administer the federal OHS regulations)

  • The Federal Minister for Women and Gender Equity (currently the

     Honourable Marci Ien (PC MP )

AND the

National Research Council (who administer and revise the Canada Building Code).  This letter should reference code change request “CCR 1441” can be cc’d to Brigitte Potvin, Technical Advisor, Codes Canada, National Research Council Canada / Government of Canada. Email is codes@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca 

 

Thanks Nancy!  We can’t wait to hear more insights from you and our other change champions on February 5th at Period Poverty and Public Policy – What Next?

Stay tuned for our next blog post featuring Soroptimist and menstrual equity change champion Sherry Smith!

 

 

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Live Your Dream Awards Application Portal Opens

Women who serve as the primary wage earners for their families and seek financial assistance to continue their education or receive training can now apply for the Soroptimist Live Your Dream: Education and Training Awards for Women.

Applications are available online: https://bit.ly/LYDA-apply or by contacting a club near you.  The complete list of Western Canada Region clubs can be found at https://wcregionnewsite9.wordpress.com/clubs.

The application deadline is November 15. Clubs present cash awards to their award recipient(s), who will then advance to the Soroptimist Western Canada Region level, where recipients could receive up to an additional $5,000. The program culminates with three finalist $10,000 awards.

Recipients can use the Live Your Dream Award to offset costs associated with their efforts to attain higher education or additional skills and training. This includes tuition, books, childcare, carfare, or any other education related expense.

The Live Your Dream Award provides over $2.8 million in cash awards to head-of-household women in need each year. Since the program’s inception in 1972, more than $35 million has helped tens of thousands of women achieve their dreams of a better life for themselves and their families. A study conducted by The Fels Institute of Government, a research and consulting organization based at the University of Pennsylvania, confirmed the efficacy and impact of this program. It improves the recipients’ quality of life; builds their confidence; strengthens their self-determination and makes them want to, in turn, help others. Helping women in this way has the demonstrated effect of leading to stronger communities, nations, and the world.

Western Canada Region is part of Soroptimist International of the Americas, a global volunteer organization that provides women and girls with access to the education and training they need to achieve economic empowerment.  For more information about how Soroptimist improves the lives of women and girls, visit www.soroptimist.org.

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Moving Forward…Sharing the Cultural Burden

Seems quiet out there . . . it’s been, what, 3 or 4 weeks since the last revelation of unmarked graves on the grounds of a residential school? Yet we all know there will be more, many more, and part of me feels like I am sitting in a room with an unexploded bomb and the bomb squad is AWOL. Going around in my head is the chorus from the old Neil Young song: “Helpless helpless, helpless . . .”

Decades ago, I attended a conference on violence against women in Ontario. There were quite a few Indigenous women there, and I have a memory of a presentation of an Indigenous model of community, with the children in the middle, then the mothers, then fathers, then grandmothers, then grandfathers. I remember tears flowing at the thought of these concentric circles of love. Then, on the last day, the whole conference disintegrated in Indigenous rage and frustration. I can’t remember the spark. I just remember – and this has stayed with me ever since – trotting after one of the women I had met, and as she strode over the ground, asking her, “Don’t we share anything?” Wanting desperately to find connection, a sense of oneness and solidarity, of community. She glared at me and said, “We all bleed.” She strode on, I lagged behind – slapped down too harshly, I thought.

I continued to think she was too harsh, for a long time. This in spite of living and working with Indigenous women in Fort Chipewyan and Fort Mackay and hearing their litany of ridiculous living conditions. Then, a few years before the Truth & Reconciliation Committee got underway, I remember seeing a movie featuring a black kid from the inner city and a privileged white guy from the suburbs. When the latter came to the ‘hood, he suddenly realized what the kid had been saying: We live in completely different worlds. That one scene got me thinking about what the Indigenous woman had said to me years before.

Over the past several years I have come to believe that we are in separate worlds, we settlers and Indigenous peoples. The worlds overlap, for some more than others. Indigenous people know a lot more about my settler world than I know of theirs. We will never be in the same world; we come from different cultures and we all want to hold our culture. Indeed, that culture – that residential schools tried very, very hard to expunge from all Indigenous children – that is the foundation for each one of us, where we come from, who we come from, our legacy. I know that my legacy is New England thrift and independence; French arrogance; French-Canadian adventure. I treasure all of it. Why would I want anyone to give up theirs?

What can I do? Any of us? Beyond feeling guilty for what “our” people did before us? I believe we settlers have a responsibility to educate ourselves, to understand. I am so grateful to our new Indigenous club member who has told us stories from her grandparents and parents and introduced some knowledge of culture. But it isn’t up to our Indigenous friends to bear the burden. So I recommend . . .

•       any book by Richard Wagamese

•       any book by Lee Maracle, especially My Conversations with Canadians

•       https://indigenousawarenesscanada.com/ – the world leader in Indigenous Awareness Training

•       https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/canada/takeatest.html – an opportunity to test your own unconscious biases

I am so grateful to the Indigenous leaders in the place I live who are focused on going forward together. What a generous sentiment. We cannot have reconciliation without understanding and acknowledgement.

I would love your comments on any discovery you have in delving into your own understanding.

Governor Suzanne

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88th Annual WCR Conference (Virtual), Day 2 – Sunday, May 16, 2021

Sunday’s agenda was one of reflection and celebration.

Governor Suzanne called the business of the day to order and advised that participants would be hearing from the Region Board Members and Committee Chairs. At past conferences two sets of reports were presented by Committee Chairs, however this year both the SIA and Region reports would be combined.

Region Board Member Reports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7dKmF477iM

Region Pillar Chair Reports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JMHVPvIIUI

Following the report from Dream It Be It (DIBI) Chair Janneke Lewis, (SI North and West Vancouver), a motion was passed that will see WCR become responsible for the Virtual Career Library website. The Region DIBI Chair will ensure that there is a committee in place to oversee operations.

NOTE: In addition to links provided, the entire day’s proceedings have been recorded.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lRGBkMRB3GsiW4JjWZ_I6vANQVJVW2xu/view?usp=sharing

Announcement of New Region Chairs

Governor Suzanne announced that the Region Board has created two new positions, inspired by Soroptimist International (SI) and comments from President Sharon Fisher. One of the main roles of SI is Advocacy on the world stage and President Sharon has commented on the sometime lack of connection between what is happening on the global level and what is happening at the local level. To address this, a Regional Advocacy Chair has been created to engage clubs at a Region level and Janneke Lewis has agreed to take on this role.

The second position will be the Region Friendship Chair who will provide WCR members with a link to the wider SI community around the world, to broaden our horizons and realize the possibilities of friendship and service with other clubs and members. Darlene Jamieson (SI Surrey Delta) will be Region Friendship Chair.

With Chari Grant moving into the role of Governor Elect, Governor Suzanne announced the Past-Governor Heather Rollins (SI Chilliwack) will assume the position of Fundraising Chair for the remainder of the biennium.

Colleen Penrowly (SI Tri-Cities) will assume the role as DIBI Chair for the remainder of the biennium as Janneke Lewis takes on her new role.

Soroptimist Foundation of Canada (SFC) Report

Colleen Penrowly (SI Tri-Cities) provided an update on the activities of SFC which included:

  • Last year six (6) grants of $8,000 were presented to women in graduate studies, this year’s applications are with the judges

  • Seven (7) clubs received $1,000 grants last year for education programs for women and girls – this year’s deadline is June 30th

  • In order to ensure women who don’t live in areas serviced by a club the opportunity to benefit from the Live Your Dream Awards, SFC is presenting seven (7) women with LYD awards in the amount of $2,000 each.

The Soroptimist Foundation of Canada Annual General Meeting will be October 23, 2021 via Zoom.

Award Presentations

Live Your Dream Award (LYD)

Chair Lynda Easler (SI of the Langleys) announced that due to the fact that all clubs in our Region participated in the LYD Awards program, WCR was able to present two financial awards this year. In fact, our clubs presented 45 awards throughout the Region amounting to approximately $116,000!

The second place recipient of the Region’s Awards is Reeham, who was SI North and West Vancouver’s first place recipient. She receives $3,000USD in addition to the financial support of the club. This year’s first place recipient is Andrea, who was the first place recipient of SI Abbotsford Mission’s LYD winners. She receives $5,000USD and will have her name forwarded for Federation judging.

You can hear the responses from these amazing young women and get to know a bit more about them.

Celebrating Success Awards

Celebrating Success Awards recognize outstanding club projects that improve the lives of women and girls through programs leading to social and economic empowerment and/or promote Soroptimist as an organization that improves the lives of women and girls.

These awards recognize the best practices of clubs in each of the four pillar areas: fundraising, membership, program and public awareness.

This year’s recipients are:

  • SI Courtenay – Excellence in Fundraising for “Trivia 2019” project

  • SI Chilliwack – Excellence in Membership for “Night at the Museum” project

  • SI Tri-Cities – Excellence in Programs for “Dress the Docs” project

  • SI Courtenay – Excellence in Public Awareness for “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” project

Isobel Gilhespy Memorial Award

Treasurer Donnal had the privilege of presenting the Isobel Gilhespy Memorial Award to the club that demonstrates the greatest net increase in membership from March 16 to March 15 of the next year. This year’s award was presented to SI White Rock!

Francis Wagner Award

Governor-Elect Chari was honoured to present this year’s Francis Wagner Award to Julie Kinsley (SI Tri-Cities). This award recognizes a Soroptimist who has dedicated her life to giving. Please view the recording to meet Julie and understand why she was chosen as this year’s recipient!

Keynote Speaker: Janneke Lewis

Janneke Lewis was born and raised in Durban, South Africa. She has a BA and LLB degree form the University of Natal, Pietrmaritzburg. During her prosecuting years, she specialized in child abuse cases having been told by her superiors that women couldn’t do fraud cases (the work she was interested in). They told her she should do sexual cases because she “could relate to them”. For 14 months she prosecuted rape cases – sometimes 3 in a day. It is here that she prosecuted the first sex ring case – it wasn’t called trafficking in the 1980’s.

When their daughter was three, Janneke and her husband arrived in Vancouver in November 1991 and she attended her first Soroptimist meeting within 2 weeks of arriving.

She has been President of North and West Vancouver club, a Region board member and Governor of Western Canada Region from 2000 – 2002. During her term, she attended International conferences in Australia and Osaka Japan.

 In April 2005,she presented a paper on “Prosecuting Child Traffickers” at the 11th UN congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice on behalf of SI. In November 2005, she was invited to attend a conference put on by ISPAC in Courmayeur Italy to examine the question of “measuring Human Trafficking: the Complexities and Pitfalls.” ISPAC (International Scientific and Professional Advisory Committee) is a“think tank” of the UN.

In 2007, she was invited to represent Soroptimist International in Vienna at the NGO consultative meeting to plan the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking and then attended the conference in February 2008. She is on the SI list of experts in the area of trafficking and violence against women and is sometimes called upon to comment on position papers of the UN on these areas on behalf of SI.

Janneke focuses primarily on the areas of family law including abuse issues, child abduction, and parenting and financial issues including division of assets and support. She is an accredited Family Law mediator and Parenting Co-ordinator.

In 2010 she was honoured with the Canadian Bar Association, BC branch Community Service Award for her work in the area of human trafficking. She is also a member of the Trial Lawyers Association and the BC Parenting Coordinator Roster Society

Janneke Lewis’ Human Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation Presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQGZM6zzifY

Following Janneke’s presentation a motion was made and passed which will see the Western Canada Region join with Eastern Canada Region in a joint Canadian Soroptimist project to ascertain whether or not police agencies in Canada implement the Nordic Model or PCEPA (Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act).

Clubs will collect this information through Freedom of Information requests to the police agencies in their area. The information will then be reported to the Regions.

The purpose of collecting this information is to lobby the Canadian Government to implement PCEPA and the Nordic Model.

Closing Remarks

Prior to Governor Suzanne declaring the 88th Annual Western Canada Region Conference closed, planning Co-Chairs Diane Summers, Shelley DellaMattia and Shirley Stewart thanked everyone for coming and for assisting in the organizing of the conference. Each shared their take away moments of the weekend and handed off the conference torch to SI Victoria WestShore for next year.

Tribute to Past Governor Roseanne Ham

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LalFm52JIjWRLXDFBLNEsekgL0GmPJak