Soroptimist Group Helps Local Women

The President of the Soroptimist group in Tunbridge Wells, Jill Ruddock, explains how the volunteers have been improving the lives of women and girls in the town for 80 years.

The local Soroptimists are a part of a worldwide movement which has over 60,000 members across more than 100 countries.

They recently had an exhibition at the Amelia Scott Centre in Tunbridge Wells.

West Kent Radio's Liz Barnes has been speaking to Jill Ruddock, who's the President of the Tunbridge Wells Soroptomists. Listen here to the 4 minute interview:

Jill Ruddock said:
"It's a relatively small group. There are about 30 of us. We've been in existence since 1946 and we're going to celebrate our 80th next year. And throughout our existence, we've sought to make life better for women and girls in all sorts of different ways.

"In the early days, we did a lot in the housing area, it was post war, and therefore, the needs of the population were quite different, but we had housing accommodation for elderly people and women who were disadvantaged.

"And then, more recently, in the 21st century, we've engaged very much with the civic landscape, working with the town council on a variety of different issues, including public conveniences, taxis for women, and one of our big areas was rail safety. We worked with the rail authorities to influence the design of carriages and stations, and even ticket machines, to make them more accessible and safe for women.

"The Soropimists aren't as well known as we would like, either nationally, internationally, or locally, and so we are doing what we can to raise our profile in the community.

"A couple of years ago, we started up with what we're calling the Listening Project, where we're using the networks that we have each individually to engage with a wide variety of women in the town and girls, to understand how they feel about the town, how they feel about living here and the things that they would like to see done differently.

"And we have engaged, as I say, with a wide variety of people, including the sisters at the Mosque, and they, in particular raised the question of whether they could have women only swimming sessions at the local sports centre. And so we now have, on a regular basis, on a Thursday afternoon, women only swimming sessions.

"A number of us have joined our patient participation group, discussing with people on the ground how women's health can be a focus for those groups. So those are examples of how we do make sure that we are relevant to the concerns of the women in the town. 

"I wonder how aware people are of the terrible incidents for the proportion of women that are affected by misogynous, sexist behaviour. The number of violent crimes against women in Kent alone, for example, last year, there were about 30,000 violence against women and girls related crimes. Half of those were domestic abuse related, and so it is something which affects every area of society.

Listen here to a longer version of the interview with Jill Ruddock: