1 - Education
Soroptimists Invest in Education !
The strategic objective is to enable women to achieve equality and freedom from social, economic and cultural constraints by promoting education. Our aim is to empower women and girls to realise their dreams and potential. Education– enabling women and children to pursue lifelong learning. Education - as a mean to empower women. Education - as a tool to eradicate and prevent Violence against Women.
Each year, we conduct hundreds if not thousands of successful local, national, and international projects to educate women and girls across 60 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
We do so by building or refurbishing schools and classrooms, providing teaching materials and books to school-age children whose parents cannot afford them, acting as mentors to young women, teaching languages to immigrant women who are struggling to integrate into a new society. Many of our projects also focus on preparing women for employment by teaching them technical skills and offering vocational programmes.As all our work, our projects in the area of Education are designed to meet the needs of women and girls in our communities.
Knowing that education is the key to achieving gender equality, each year we provide hundreds of scholarships to deserving women and girls in our communities. In 2014 alone, we provided 1,600 different high school, university, further education, and vocational training scholarships.
We advocate actively for equality in education and equality in teaching at the local, national, and international levels.
What can Soroptimist do? Click HERE
Some examples of our EDUCATION projects:
- Soroptimists across Germany have for decade now been running a mentoring programme for young women which helps them develop their leadership potential, prepares them for management positions, provides them with networking opportunities, and shows them that it is possible to have a successful career and a family.
- Soroptimists in Bamako, Mali, together with Soroptimists in Switzerland recently built a school in the Malian village of Foura. They also contributed to the well-being of the entire village community by digging a well to provide clean drinking water and installing solar panels to ensure the village has a sustainable and clean source of electricity. As a result, local children no longer need to walk 4 km twice a day to go to school, rates of filariasis are being reduced, and local women are taking evening literacy classes at the school.
- Soroptimists from the Austria are helping migrant women and girls integrate into their new communities, by organising German language courses, providing information on citizens’ rights, duties and laws in Austria, and sharing festivities and meals with women hailing from 16 different countries from across 4 continents. So far, among the women who have participated in the courses, many have passed their Austrian citizenship test and obtained employment.
- Soroptimists in Gisenyi, Rwanda, are running a project to enable girls to learn a trade so that they can earn a living. Project participants follow a two-year course to learn sewing and dressmaking. The project also promotes literacy by teaching women and girls to read and write.
- Soroptimists across the Netherlands are cooperating with the University Assistance Fund to provide financial and hands-on assistance to refugee women who are not eligible for government funding. Many of them have had to sacrifice their university education and need assistance to further their academic careers.