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October is the birth month of Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman of the world who worked to improve the lives of people all over the world, and assisted in writing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I came across this quote from Eleanor "You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude."  

Over the past few months our Soroptimists attitude has been challenged, the SI convention provided opportunities to expand our knowledge across several pillars as we listened to expert speakers, we increased our Soroptimist knowledge.  Last week in Kuala Lumpur I attended the Thriving Futures program along with 28 Soroptimists from 10 of our 13 countries. 

 

The Thriving Futures program (a 6 months Leadership, Retention and Extension program, which included 3 days face to face, and 1 day strategic planning day)  is about changing attitudes.  The course content covered personal development, leadership strengths, effective meetings and planning, this led into planning and strategies for SISEAP retention and recruitment.  Soroptimist International and the members will benefit greatly from this training.  The women bonded, were frank and honest about membership in their clubs, there was much sharing of ideas and what did and did not work, the attendees all finished day 3 on a high, and were eager to take back learnings to their club members. 

Day of the Girl Child advocacy program is about changing attitudes, we need our young girls to be resilient and strong as they face adversity at every step as they strive forward in this world. We need to educate our men, employers and boys, that women are equal.  The programme team have prepared two excellent interviews with young women and a toolkit to assist you with your advocacy and social media campaigns.  

Language as a tool for communication.  Recently I have had the opportunity to visit Soroptimists in a range of countries, language and communication was often a topic.  English is the official Soroptimist language, but we make all efforts to be inclusive to members who have English as their 2nd language, and part of this inclusiveness is that the website now can be read in all the languages of our member countries. Yet whilst this has been communicated many times, it is only as I have been visiting countries and demonstrating this, that I got the “oohs and ahhs”, the smiles and high fives,  so please make sure that all your members know where and how to change the language for improved communication. The bulletin and e-span can also be converted to other languages but not all the languages of our Federation.  Club meetings do not have to be conducted in English they can be conducted in the language of the country. 

 As a Soroptimist there has been much change in the past months, but remember it is about how you react to this change, and remaining positive to what is important to you about being a Soroptimist is the key.  There is always work to do to improve the lives of women and girls and you are the one to do it.

Yours in Soroptimist friendship,

Christine Johnstone
President 2022-2024
Soroptimist International South East Asia Pacific
swppresident2022@siswp.org

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