Buns & Roses WI

Buns & Roses kicked off the year in style with attendees making a name badge with our new supply of Scrabble tiles and using Christmas cards to make decorations or crackers whilst we got down to the serious business of the Resolutions.


The committee presented the shortlisted resolutions:


1. Alleviating loneliness

This meeting calls on every WI and the NFWI to work alongside health and social care providers and their local community to raise awareness of the causes and impacts of loneliness, thus ensuring better identification of lonely people in order to be able to offer them the appropriate assistance and support.


2. FGM: More Awareness for More Action

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been illegal in the UK for over 30 years and the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 made it illegal to aid, abet or procure the carrying out of FGM abroad. However, there have been no successful prosecutions of those involved. The NFWI calls on the government to improve efforts to measure and disclose the prevalence of FGM in the UK and to take further action to help secure more successful prosecutions of those involved in this abusive practice and thereby advance the health of women who have suffered or may be at risk of suffering FGM.


3. Equal access for all who need specialised maternal mental health services

There is presently an acute shortage of quality specialised maternal mental health services, meaning that many vulnerable women, their babies, and families face a postcode lottery of perinatal mental health support. The NFWI calls on NHS commissioners to prioritise the development of specialised perinatal mental health support services so that pregnant and postnatal women, their babies, and families are able to access the support they need.


4. Provision of appropriate welfare and safe spaces for women and children in refugee camps

Millions of women and children are fleeing conflict and disaster around the world, finding themselves at risk of violence, abuse and exploitation in refugee camps. This meeting calls on all WI members and the NFWI to raise awareness of the risks facing women and children refugees and push for action to ensure they have access to safe places to eat and sleep, to get the care they need and space to learn and play.


5. Supporting women’s refuges

Many women and children rely on refuges to escape violence and abusive relationships, but in recent years refuges have faced significant cuts to their services. The NFWI calls upon the Government to safeguard refuges and increase service provision in areas without adequate support.


6. Plastic Soup: Keep micro plastic fibres out of our oceans

Micro plastic fibres are shed from synthetic clothing with every wash and are the main contributors to micro plastic contamination of the oceans. The NFWI calls on Government and industry to research and develop innovative solutions to this problem in order to stop the accumulation of micro plastic fibres in our oceans.


Every member had the opportunity to select which resolution they would like to see put forward for voting at the Annual Meeting (AM).
In mid Feb - NFWI Board of Trustees meets to finalise list of resolutions for the AM agenda, based on the number of selection votes from members, progress of existing campaigns and key developments on the resolutions. AM resolution(s) sent from the NFWI to all federations after the Board meets and further briefing notes are published on the NFWI website and Moodle.
AM resolution(s) published in April’s WI Life magazine.

At our May meeting we will review resolution(s) to be voted on at the AM and decide whether we want to vote in favour or against the resolution.