Zonta Says NO To Violence Against Women, it’s 16-day campaign began Monday, November 25 and runs through Tuesday, December 10. We will be running the campaign in three different sections (November 25-30, December 1-5 and December 6-10. The following is the third five days of the campaign.
Day 12 — Dec. 6 — Zonta is the Zonta Clubs of Frankfort and Lebanon, both chartered in 1956; Lebanon on July 1 and Frankfort on October 5. They are two of over 1,200 clubs in the world working locally to support projects to help women and girls reach their full potential.
Day 13 — Dec. 7 — Zonta is the members of the Frankfort and Lebanon Zonta Clubs and their work in raising funds to support international service projects, as well as local projects and scholarships. The Frankfort Club holds their annual Chicken Noodle Dinner & Country Store on the first Saturday in March, while the Lebanon Club raises funds in three ways: Ladies’ Night Out; Silent Auction & Live Purse Auction with vendors and free food in March, a food booth at Lincoln’s Lebanon Civil War Reenactment in September & in November, the sale of Poinsettias for the holidays. Locally, the Clubs support various local organizations in their respective communities with the funds raised from these activities, including: Frankfort: Quinton’s House Child Advocacy Center — organized items donated by the community; The Way Out Sober Living Home — donated various needed items; and the YWCA Emergency Shelter — gathered items for mothers and children escaping violence. Lebanon: Ohana House — provided food, paper products and small appliances; Sylvia’s Place Child Advocacy Center — donated needed items; and United Methodist Children’s Home — prepared craft and holiday programs.
Day 14 — Dec. 8 — Zonta is celebrating its 100th anniversary and in honor, the Zonta Clubs of Frankfort and Lebanon have undertaken special local projects this year: Frankfort: assembled 100 First Aid Kits for the Open Door Health Clinic, who annually serves nearly 3,000 uninsured or under-insured patients, operating solely on donations; and applied for and received a Centennial Anniversary Grant on behalf of the YWCA of Greater Lafayette and its Domestic Violence Intervention and Prevention Program. This program serves seven counties, including Clinton and in 2018 provided over 9,000 bed nights for victims of domestic violence, including the children, and handled 5,600 crisis hotline calls. Lebanon: funded and offered a new Women in Technology Scholarship in support of one with the same name offered through Zonta International in recognition of the Centennial; and prepared a very large Centennial Anniversary “cake” float and participated in the Lebanon Fourth of July parade.
Day 15 — Dec. 9 — Zonta is a supporter of Z and Golden Z Clubs at high schools and on college and university campuses. These student clubs are designed to provide opportunities for young adults to develop communication and leadership skills, explore career alternatives and increase their international awareness and understanding through service. Through this program, Zontians work to bring Zonta’s mission to empower women through service and advocacy to students around the world and to stimulate new and meaningful student-led service and advocacy projects. Zonta believes young people are critical to achieving gender equality and ending violence against women and girls around the world. Locally, the Zonta Club of Frankfort is honored to be the sponsor for the Clinton Prairie Z Club with 26 members and the Lebanon High School Z Club with 13 members who has been proudly sponsored by the Lebanon Zonta Club since 1978.
Day 16 — Dec. 10 — Zonta is a global organization that envisions a world in which women’s rights are recognized as human rights. And on this day, Human Rights Day, a day to commemorate the day the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948, we should all pause to reflect on what this document means to the world. Zonta, the first women’s service organization that partnered with the United Nations, celebrates the Declaration as milestone in promoting women’s rights as human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights — the most translated document in the world, available in over 500 languages — empowers us all. Its principles are as relevant today as they were in 1948. We need to stand up for our own rights and those of others. Promoting universal respect for human rights is listed as one of Zonta’s objects in our Bylaws. Consequently, women’s rights remain the guideline for international projects such as addressing early marriage, refugee women, human trafficking and girls’ education. Everything we do at Zonta International is because we envision a world in which women’s rights are recognized as human rights. Through our international service and education programs, our clubs’ service projects and our advocacy actions at the national and local levels, Zontians are committed to equality, justice and human dignity. Together, we will remain fully committed to continue our work.
Eleanor Roosevelt — And, by the way, in an almost entirely male-led government world, it was a women who chaired the United Nations Commission that wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Eleanor Roosevelt, who offered the following on where universal rights begin: “In small places, so close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm of office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”