More photos from SI's delegation to China

President Hanne Jensbo with women from Vietnam at the Expo Center

Malaysian pavilion at Expo

Visiting a village in Yunnan province

Income generation project in the village

Tea House in village for income generation

President Hanne Jensbo dancing with local women

President Hanne Jensbo with Madam Zheng, Head of Yunnan Women's Federation, (to her
left) at a presentation of an anti - trafficking project in a Muslim
community in Yunnan Province

Leaders implementing the project.  They work closely with the ILO.

Organic nursery (income generation)

Successful crops at the nursery!

Local female leaders

16 year old girl  at an orphanage in Lijiang.  This
orphanage has 400 students and is housing some orphans from the Earthquake two
years ago, also some orphans from HIV AIDS. This girl is 16 a leader of her
class and is completing the 9 years of compulsory schooling.



Female dormitory in orphanage



Group dance in Old town for Moon Festival

President Hanne Jensbo's Speech at the ACWF (China) Conference

 “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.” (Marie Curie, Polish-born French chemist, 1867-1934)

In this speech, I will first introduce Soroptimist International (SI) and tell you a little about what we do, then, I will present our approach as it relates to the discussions we are having here, and finally, I will give a few examples of how we implement our approach in the real world.  So let us begin! 

Soroptimist International is a worldwide service organisation of women, for women.  SI is committed to a world where women and girls together achieve their individual and collective potential, realise aspirations and have an equal voice in creating sustainable communities worldwide.  Our mission is to inspire action and create opportunities to transform the lives of women and girls through a global network of members and international partnerships. 

From the founding of the first Soroptimist club in 1921 through to the present day where over 3000 clubs are flourishing throughout the world, Soroptimists have continued to strive to achieve the best for women in every sphere of their lives.  SI is now approaching 90,000 members in 125 countries/territories.  SI’s structure embraces partnerships between the Global North and the Global South, whereby we learn from one another and support one another as we empower women and girls.

I will now present three aspects of SI’s work as it relates to this panel:

First, Potential

SI believes that every woman and girl deserves an equal chance in life.  Our work, primarily through programming, focuses on identifying women and girls who are unable to achieve their full potential due to social, economic, political, and contextual factors.      

Second, RIGHTS:

SI’s advocacy efforts are unique in that we link community based experience working with individual women and girls to international policy debate.  Not only can we help to realise the rights of individual women and girls, but we also work to mould policies to ensure that the collective rights of women and girls are respected, protected, and fulfilled at international level.

Responsibilities:  In order for gender stereotypes to be broken we work within communities, including working with men, boys, and male community leaders, to create a more enabling and gender equitable environment.  We also work with individual women and girls to ensure that they are empowered to take on new roles, in other words, that they have the skills and confidence to make gender equality work.  In this way, we can support women and girls as they strive towards realising their potentials and their rights through a holistic programme of development.  For example, SI and Women for Women International “Project Independence” aimed to help individual women to learn new skills to become self-sufficient, become independent, and ultimately to realize her voice, her worth and her strength.  Now, 25% of the Rwandan women who participated in the project are elected officials.

Let me share more examples:

Lois lives in Sierra Leone.  As a small girl she was orphaned when both of her parents died in the war. With no income, no housing, and no vocational skills, she felt she had no other choice but to turn to sex work.  She soon became pregnant.  After her daughter’s birth, life for Lois became increasingly difficult.  She reached a breaking point when she began to feel like she may have to abandon her daughter.  Lois became a participant in the Soroptimist partnered project ‘Project SIerra’, which works to help disadvantaged women in the aftermath of conflict in Sierra Leone face their futures with confidence through skills training.  Lois graduated from the Young Mothers’ Programme and is now working for the Sierra Leone police force, living independently and providing for her daughter.  Her dream is to become a Sierra Leone Policewoman in the UN Peacekeeping Mission for Officers. 

Ludmilla lives in Moldova.  Her father died when she was a young girl.  Since then her life, as she put it, had been a horror movie.  Her mother left when Ludmilla was 13, leaving her to care for her six year old brother and two year old sister.  A young girl herself, she was suddenly thrust into the role of mother and caregiver.  With no one else to take care of her younger siblings, Ludmilla had to drop out of school.  Ludmilla was given the opportunity to participate in the Soroptimist project ‘Hopes and Dreams for Everyone’, which focuses on the prevention of human trafficking from Moldova by providing life-skills education and sustainable living conditions for vulnerable children.  Ludmilla went back to school and finished with excellent grades.  She has overcome the hardships and problems she faced and is now looking towards a career. 

A young Ethiopian woman was found in a dark hut where she had lain on a goat skin bed for many years suffering from an obstetric fistula.  She had bed sores down to the bone. The young woman had lain still for so long hoping that she would stop leaking that she lost the use of her legs and could not walk.  She was so psychologically depressed she did not speak.  This young Ethiopian woman was brought to the Hamlin Fistula Hospital and joined the Soroptimist project ‘Restoring Dignity – Securing a Future’, which focuses not only on physical healing, but also on mental and emotional healing through education and vocational training.  After months of rehabilitation and physiotherapy she began to come alive again.  She began to talk and socialise, and now walks and has learnt to read and write.  She is now the ‘official’ record keeper for the dairy and records the milk production from each cow every day.

These hopeful and happy endings address the root causes of gendered barriers to equality – in these cases, poverty, economic vulnerability, and health.  These women and girls faced a lack of skills, confidence, and opportunities which made it impossible to reach their full potential and realise their rights.  Our contribution – which can work for many different organisations in many different contexts - enabled them to break the cycle and lead productive lives.

Soroptimist International delegation visits China and the All China Women's Federation

The ACWF (All-China Women’s Federation) sent a delegation to the SISWP conference of clubs at the Gold Coast in April. From this came an invitation for SI President Hanne Jensbo, SISWP president Yvonne Simpson, past international president Jane Zimmerman, SISWP President Elect Siew Yong Gnanalingan, IPP Leigh Ellwood-Brown and past federation president Lorna Mead to attend the International Forum on Women in Urban Development and Commemoration of the 15th Anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women on 17 September 2010, Shanghai, China. After the Forum the delegation was invited to visit ACWF projects.


The Forum had 300 attendees representing 50 countries, including regional organizations from Africa, United Nations and Experts from UNESCO,UNESCAP, UNISDR, UNIFEM and CEDAW and four international organizations (International Women’s Forum, Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, World Family Organization and Soroptimist International). The declaration that resulted from the Forum was to reaffirm the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Convention of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Millennium Development Goals with recommendations for (abbreviated)
• a people-oriented approach to ensure gender equality, sustainability and harmony between people and the environment,
• a gender perspective to ensure equal participation of women in all aspects of urban development, particularly in decision making
• ensure all people benefit from urban development
• strengthen co-operation between governments and civil society including women’s organizations


The addresses by leading advocates from the many countries present was an inspiration.


The afternoon consisted of a choice of three breakout sessions – Women in Leadership: ways beyond the glass ceiling; Women and Urbanization: mobility, transition and sustainable development and Challenging the gender roles: potentials, rights and responsibilities. SI President Hanne was a panelist on the latter session and gave examples of Soroptimist programmes with positive interaction with those attending the workshop. All workshops had Soroptimist representation.


Following the Forum the delegation travelled to Kunming, Lijian and Suzhou and visited projects where ACWF had made a positive impact. These included
• Anti trafficking education for migrant women who were particularly vulnerable to labour abuse.
• Organic gardening where a woman who had lost her employment was supported to build a gardening business. She now employs others and serves as a role model in her community.
• Tourism Co-operative – where women have been encouraged to take leadership roles in the governance of the commune
• Orphanage especially for children following the earthquake. There are now education opportunities for 400 children – helping break the poverty cycle.
• Capacity building by supporting entrepreneurial women – in the manufacturing (high quality hand embroidery) and retail businesses. In each of the two projects we visited a capable woman was supported to build a business which now trains and employs others.
• We also met with government officials, and leading women in the cities we visited which gave both parties the opportunity to share challenges and successes. We were able to promote Soroptimist ideals and examples of our programme of service.

We were escorted by ACWF staff Hongju and Xu Yue, who ensured we were well informed and on schedule. We learned from each other and deepened the relationship. Our thanks go to them for their humour and care. In true capacity development we had the balance of a leader within ACWF and a much younger staff member with potential. Thanks also go to President Hanne for her advocacy of our ideals at every opportunity, and the excellent work done in the past by Jane, Leigh and Lorna and others that brought the relationship to this point. I had the privilege to thank our many hosts. PE Siew Yong will now understudy IPP Leigh for the rest of this biennium and take the lead role in 2012. We look forward with confidence that our relationship and partnership with ACWF will continue to grow and develop. It has a very strong foundation upon which to grow.


Yvonne Simpson
President and delegate

News from the MDG Summit, 20-22 September, NYC, from the UN NGO Liaison Service

From 20-22 September, close to 140 Heads of State and Government gathered at UN Headquarters for the three-day High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), also known as the “MDG Summit.” Ten years ago, all UN Member States – 189 at that time – adopted the Millennium Declaration, which provided the basis for elaborating the eight MDG Goals, most of them with time-bound targets, ranging from halving hunger and poverty by 2015 to dealing comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries.

The summit sought to accelerate progress towards achieving the MDGs by 2015 and to undertake a comprehensive review of successes, best practices and lessons learnt, obstacles and gaps, challenges and opportunities that could lead to concrete strategies for action. In advance of the summit, the UN Secretary- General released his report Keeping the Promise, which calls for a new pact to accelerate progress in achieving the Goals in the coming years. The report provided a basis for negotiations in the run up to the summit.

On the final day of the summit, Member States adopted an outcome document – “Keeping the Promise: United to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals”– in which Member States set out an action agenda in order to reach the Goals by 2015.

Notably, the outcome document highlights the importance of gender equality and women’s empowerment to the achievement of the MDGs:

“We recognize that gender equality, the empowerment of women, women’s full enjoyment of all human rights and the eradication of poverty are essential to economic and social development, including the achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals. We reaffirm the need for the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Achieving gender equality and empowerment of women is both a key development goal and an important means for achieving all of the Millennium Development Goals. We welcome the establishment of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), and pledge our full support for its operationalisation.”

“We acknowledge the importance of gender equality and empowerment of women to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Women are agents of development. We call for action to ensure the equal access of women and girls to education, basic services, health care, economic opportunities and decisionmaking at all levels. We stress that investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency and sustained economic growth. We recognize the need for gender mainstreaming in the formulation and implementation of development policies.”

Specifically, the Summit Document describes the international commitment to achieving MDG3: Gender Equality:

“(a) Taking action to achieve the goals of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and its twelve critical areas of concern, our commitments in the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the obligations and commitments of States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child

(b) Ensuring access to education and successful schooling of girls by removing barriers and expanding support for girls’ education through measures such as providing free primary education, a safe environment for schooling and financial assistance such as scholarships and cash transfer programmes, promoting supportive policies to end discrimination against women and girls in education, and tracking completion and attendance rates with a view to retaining girls in schools through secondary levels;

(c) Empowering women, in particular women living in poverty, through, inter alia, social and economic policies that guarantee them full and equal access to all levels of quality education and training and vocational training, including technical, managerial and entrepreneurial training, and to affordable and adequate public and social services;

(d) Ensuring that women benefit from policy measures to generate full and productive employment and decent work for all, in accordance with commitments by States to International Labour Organization conventions, including policy measures to promote, inter alia, access of women and girls, including mothers and pregnant women, to formal and non-formal education, equal skills development and employment opportunities, closing wage gaps between women and men and recognizing women’s unpaid work, including care work;

(e) Investing in infrastructure and labour-saving technologies, especially in rural areas, benefiting women and girls by reducing their burden of domestic activities, affording the opportunity for girls to attend school and women to engage in self-employment or participate in the labour market;

(f) Taking action to improve the numbers and active participation of women in all political and economic decision-making processes, including by investing in women’s leadership in local decision-making structures and processes, encouraging appropriate legislative action and creating an even playing field for men and women in political and Government institutions, and intensifying our efforts for the equal participation of women and men as key stakeholders at all levels in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and peacebuilding processes;

(g) Strengthening comprehensive national laws and policies and programmes to enhance accountability and raise awareness, prevent and combat all forms of violence against women and girls everywhere, which undermine their full enjoyment of all human rights, and ensure that women have access to justice and protection, and that all perpetrators of such violence are duly investigated, prosecuted and punished in order to end impunity, in conformity with national legislation, international humanitarian law and international human rights law;

(h) Improving national-level capacity to monitor and report on progress, gaps and opportunities through better generation and use of sex- and age-disaggregated data, including with the support of the international community;

(i) Enhancing the impact of development assistance in advancing gender equality and empowerment of women and girls through targeted activities including capacity-building, as well as through gender mainstreaming and enhanced dialogue between donors and partners, involving, as appropriate, civil society and the private sector, with a view to ensuring adequate funding;

(j) Facilitating access by women to affordable microfinance, in particular microcredit, which can contribute to poverty eradication, gender equality and the empowerment of women;

(k) Promoting and protecting women’s equal access to adequate housing, property and land, including rights to inheritance, and enabling them to secure access to credit through appropriate constitutional, legislative and administrative measures;

(l) Promoting women’s economic empowerment and ensuring women’s access to productive resources. In this regard, strengthening gender responsive public management in order to ensure gender equality in resource allocation, capacity development and benefit sharing in all sectors, including in central and local level governments.”

The outcome document also includes a gendered aspect in the outline of the commitments to each of the other MDGs, an approach which has been lacking in the past and likely has contributed to slow progress. 

For more information, please visit http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/