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Join us for the hilarious sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel on Tuesday the 3rd of March at the Barracks Cinemas.

To book, visit our TryBooking Event Page.

Did you know that Zonta Club of Brisbane Breakfast is holding another Estee Lauder shopping event on Saturday the 13th of December? Just in time to get some gorgeous presents for your loved ones, or for yourself!

Please also spread the word amongst your friends – not only will you be helping your friends out with Christmas ideas, but also helping support our amazing service projects.

We were fortunate to have our annual dose of the inspirational May Lamont presenting at our monthly meeting on Friday 5^th September.

May was on the founding Committee and subsequently National President for UNIFEM. May has also been a Soroptimist since 1989 and is the Project Manager of the Soroptimist Birthing in the Pacific Project (which is one of the recipients of our birthing kits in PNG) and is now Vice President of the United Nations Association Queensland, where her focus is another issue for women, being peace building.

May explained the recent projects of the Soroptimist International project being the provision of education and training to 16 midwives, 70 community health workers and the 137 traditional birthing attendants.

She shared the stories of Arthur who was an obstetrician who did the midwifery course to learn how to teach others or Paula who wanted to leaned the correct techniques as to date her 17 year experience was based on imitation of best examples from others. Following her course Paula presented successfully in New Zealand.

May also expressed the frustrations experienced in PNG with a wonderful new community health facility built but there was no electricity to operate the equipment and no reliable water for sanitation. Most of these facilities are generally with a dirt floor.

This project is an evolving which will take time and is full of surprises. The need is great and there are too few facilities and staff within the health system. Juliet’s story clearly reflected this overwhelming need.

Our May guest speakers were Jenny Richardson and Madina Zulpukharova from the not-for-profit organisation, Dress for Success Brisbane which is managed by Suited to Success.

The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

Dress for Success Brisbane serves clients by referral only who come from a continually expanding and diverse group of non-profit and government agencies including homeless shelters, immigration services, job training programs, educational institutions and domestic violence shelters, among many other organisations. On her initial visit a woman receives a suit appropriate for the industry in which she is interviewing and, if available, accessories. After a woman finds a job she returns to Dress for Success for additional clothing that can be mixed and matched to make several outfits, providing her with the foundation for a professional wardrobe.

To meet the need for services that would help women both find and keep jobs, they established the Professional Women’s Group (PWG) program, which offers women ongoing support as they successfully transition into the workforce, build thriving careers and prosper in the mainstream workplace. Once a woman joins the PWG she is a member for life, able to attend meetings at any affiliate throughout the world, and can benefit from additional employment retention and mentoring programs. Dress for Success also runs a Career Centre, fully equipped with a computer lab and trained volunteers with extensive HR, recruitment, and business experience, to assist clients in establishing and achieving self-determined career goals.

Dress for Success relies on the financial contributions, in-kind donations, the volunteer efforts of individuals and forming working partnerships with companies who are committed to helping women take charge of their lives. For fund raising functions or events, or to become a volunteer, visit www.dressforsuccess.org/brisbane or their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/dressforsuccessbrisbane.

Zonta Club of Brisbane Breakfast Member, Megan Milne, was privileged to attend the recent State Reception with Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the 19th April 2014 at the Sky Room, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre which was part of the Royal Tour.

The 230 attendees were selected from a group of nominees mostly between 25 and 35 years old, put forward based upon their involvement in their local communities throughout Queensland spanning across the social service, arts, science, and sporting fields.

Megan was invited through the paid and voluntary positions she holds with Suited to Success, which manages the Dress for Success Brisbane program, as well as her involvement in Zonta. Megan was honoured to be included amongst these young Queensland achievers and  to be part of such a special and rare event.

Recently, Zonta Brisbane Breakfast Club had the pleasure of meeting Ms Dulcinea Hernandez. Dulcinea is the Director of Community Participation at Volunteering Queensland. Dulcinea discussed with the Zonta Brisbane Breakfast Club a project called ‘Bright Futures’.

This project involves the mentoring of women to enhance their opportunities to return to the workforce. To successfully operate such a program there is a three step process. This involves women dedicating their time to being a mentor, sharing their skills in the area of marketing/fundraising/networking and sponsorship.

Dulcinea gave the Zonta Brisbane Breakfast Club ladies the opportunity to brainstorm ideas for partnering with Volunteering Queensland in order to provide mentoring services.

Many wonderful ideas were considered, and going forward Zonta Brisbane Breakfast Club hopes to offer such services to assist in the progression of women back into the workforce.

For a long time our club has supported the Birthing Kit Foundation and our Birthing Kit Day is one of the biggest events in our Zontian yearly calendar. Last Wednesday the 19th of February we had the privilege of hearing Dr Luc Mulimbalimba Masururu, Medical Director of Mission in Health Care and Development in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and an agent for the Birthing Kit Foundation in the DRC as well. PwC kindly provided us with their premises and we were joined by club members, representatives from our Birthing Kit sponsors, Talisman Energy and The Birthing Kit Foundation, and members of the public.

Dr Luc Mulimbalimba Masururu gave an excellent insight into the maternal and infant health challenges throughout the East African region where he works and how his work with the Birthing Kit Foundation not only provides birthing kits but trains traditional midwives as well as educating communities about healthy eating, providing education, and providing channels for traditional midwives to refer women to hospitals when complications arise.

We also heard about how the Birthing Kit Foundation was providing employment opportunities for women by employing them to make the birthing kits and enabling them to invest their incomes in small grassroots agricultural of animal husbandry projects that focus on the particular strengths and skills of communities and give them the materials to earn a living from this. Considering that the DRC lost roughly 5 million people in its civil war with rape and sexual violence rife throughout this time, the work that Dr Luc and the Birthing Kit Foundation are doing in helping to address social, economic and health issues, in particular maternal and infant health and wellbeing in East Africa, is astounding.

We have seen pictures and heard reports about how the Birthing Kits that we assemble every year change the lives of mothers and their babies is countries around the world, but to know that this project also works with communities to establish strong foundations to address the causes of maternal and infant health risks, is fantastic.

If you would like to know more about the Birthing Kit Foundation (Australia) and the work they do, please go to www.birthingkitfoundation.org.au. If you would like to also become involved in the Zonta Club of Brisbane Breakfast Birthing Kit Day, please check our club website regularly to receive updates on how to register for this year’s Birthing Kit Day (www.zontabrisbanebreakfast.org).

Last Friday we enjoyed our last club breakfast for 2013 and in light of Zonta International’s current 16 days of activism to stop violence against women and White Ribbon Day on the 25th November, we continued with our focus on domestic violence with a fantastic guest talk by Jane Sleight-Leach who shared her story with us and was a true inspiration to the club with her strength and perseverance. Jane also gave us an insight into the Life 2 Project, which is an organisation started by Jane to provide the tools and support to empower women to be confident, true to themselves and able to find peace within their lives. More information about the Life 2 Project can be found at http://www.life2project.com.au/ and we strongly encourage you to read more into the great work Jane is doing.

We also had the honour of inducting our newest club members with an astounding 7 ladies becoming official members of our club. We would like to extent a very warm welcome to our newest members; we really look forward to working with you and feel very lucky to have such a talented group of ladies joining us.

Lastly, as our fundraising efforts this year have been so successful due to the hard work undertaken by our Finance and Fundraising Committee and all of the support received by the Brisbane Community, we have been able to raise an additional $1000 for service projects. We have decided to donate this to the Young Parents Program (http://www.youngparentsprogram.org.au/) who provide a fantastic and much need support service to first time pregnant and parenting young women to improve pregnancy and birthing outcomes for young women during the antenatal period and general health and social outcomes for mothers and babies for the first year in the postnatal period. The particular program we chose to support was the Welcome to Motherhood Pamper pack Project, which provides various items to mothers, for themselves and their newborns such as baby clothes, nappies and lotions to compliment the emotional support offered by the organisation. What a great service!

We wish everyone a very relaxing and safe Christmas, and a Happy New Year. 2014 is looking like it is going to a great year for our club with so many exciting and fun things planned to advocate for the empowerment of women – we can’t wait!

This morning many of us were thrilled to be present at the Supreme Court Breakfast for White Ribbon Day – as usual, clad with our bright orange Zonta Says NO shirts.

This kicks off the 16 days of activism to say NO to violence against women – see the Zonta says NO website for more information and ideas!

On November 9th hundreds of Zontians, including a great contingent of members and friends of Zonta Club of Brisbane Breakfast, attended Newstead Park to walk 6.5kms in support of the Zonta Says No Walk to End Violence Against Women and Girls.

It was quite hot, but a beautiful day and a wonderful setting. We had many people come up to members and curiously ask what it was all about – and truly this was what it should be about: Getting the word out there about the Campaign, and Zonta.

At the conclusion of the walk, we were honoured to hear from three wonderful speakers. Dr. Shannon Spriggs spoke on the importance of changing bystander behaviour, and finding ways to be empowered to change individual and social behaviours to put an end to the existence and acceptance of violence against women and girls. A member of the Queensland Police spoke about the definition and instances of Violence in Queensland and Australia. Finally, a survivor of domestic violence told us her story, and I think everyone was moved by her bravery and courage, as well as her conviction to help others in similar situations.

We would like to thank the District 22 organisers, and especially Amena Reza, District 22 Area 3 Director, for making the event such a successful and memorable experience for all those involved.