LIVERPOOL women are to join thousands around the UK who are partying to help poor women and girls across the world.

Olivia Sloan, 23, from Meols, and Nahida Ullah, 17, from Tuebrook, are among the first in the UK to lead a national campaign in which women are ditching the scales and the diets and making a special New Year’s resolution instead: make some time this year to celebrate themselves and women who every day fight against poverty.

Each of them will organise a “Do” to raise money for Oxfam on International Women’s Day.

In March, more than 2,000 women around Britain will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day by holding an Oxfam Do.

Liverpool, and the rest of the country, will see an unprecedented number of dinner parties, barn dances, film nights and clothes swaps as women come out in force to celebrate in whatever way they see fit.

Olivia, who works as a deputy manager in the Oxfam shop, on Bold Street, is hosting a wine night with her girlfriends that week.

“I really hope that all my friends in Liverpool will join in,” she said.

“The more money we can raise that night, the more girls and women around the world we can help. 700 million women around the world live on less than $2 per day.

“Far too often, all over the world, women are told, ‘don’t’. Oxfam is about supporting and celebrating women who ‘do’, all over the world, every day; women who fight to survive in refugee camps, to feed their children, to earn a living.”

Nahida, who volunteers in the shop when she isn’t in college, will organise a pancake night during the week of International Women’s Day.

“The good thing about it is that by organising a ‘Do’, a party, you have fun with your girlfriends doing something you want to do and that you like, and you help others too,” she explained.

So, don’t get down about New Year’s resolutions, and instead do dinner, do drinks, do dancing, do something – however you decide to celebrate, you'll be helping women in poverty.

TO SIGN up for an Oxfam Do, call Esther on 0161 234 2923 or 07738 587107 or email efisher@oxfam.org.uk