wfn.org | [ENS] Anglican women worldwide: March 6 panel to feature Edelman,

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@mail.epicom.org>]

Daybook, from Episcopal News Service

January 14, 2005 - Friday Forum: Voices on Global Issues

Anglican women worldwide: March 6 panel to feature Edelman, U.N.
commission
delegates

'Repairing the World: Anglican Women's Faith in Action' is topic for
gathering at New York cathedral

[ENS] Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund,
will
be the keynote speaker for a worldwide panel of Anglican women on
Sunday,
March 6, from 3 - 5 p.m. in Synod Hall at the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine, New York. The topic is "Repairing the World: Anglican Women's
Faith
in Action." The public is invited.

Edelman's entire career has been devoted to promoting human rights.
After
graduating from Spelman College and Yale Law School, she became the
first
black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar and directed the NAACP Legal
and
Educational fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. After working in public
interest law in Washington, D.C., she founded the Children's Defense
Fund to
ensure that every child has a "successful passage to adulthood with the
help
of caring families and communities."

The panel will be drawn from Anglican women gathering in New York as
delegates to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
(UNCSW).
Each woman will tell how her personal faith has led and sustained her
while
working to improve the lives of women and children. Panelists will also
discuss how all individuals can answer God's call in their work.

This event is being sponsored by the Anglican Women's Empowerment Team
(AWET), a diverse group of women who, with the help of the Episcopal
Office
of Women's Ministries, supports the work of the Anglican Observer to the
United Nations. AWET advocates and participants include several
Episcopal
bishops and bishops' spouses.

For the last two years, AWET has brought Anglican delegates from around
the
world to New York to share their work and faith while attending UNCSW.

This year, AWET expects 46 women from the Anglican provinces and 40
Episcopal women from the United States to be in attendance.

Last year, the Anglican delegates discussed how they were working to
change
attitudes in their own countries on issues such as AIDS and sexuality,
interfaith dialogues, and the plight of widows. "These conversations,
vital
to the mission of the church, are essentially missing from the
decision-making tables of the Anglican Communion," said the Rev.
Margaret
Rose, head of women's ministries in the Episcopal Church of the United
States. "The voices of these women, working at the center of their
communities, living out Christ's mission, are far from the dialogue
which
shapes the official conversation on reconciliation in our church today."

AWET also believes that such voices need to be heard in the political
arenas
of the United States and the United Nations, especially at this year's
Commission on the Status of Women which marks the 10th Anniversary of
the
Beijing Platform for Action, the historic meeting that laid out a plan
to
achieve full human rights for women. While there have been global
advances
in health care and education for women since the Beijing Platform, "the
political climate for gender equality has gotten worse," according to
Carolyn Hannon, director of the U.N.'s Division for the Advancement of
Women. There is a huge income gap between men and women. Violence and
discrimination against women and girls is condoned in many cultures.

AWET leaders say they hope that all who attend will be inspired to do
the
work that God has called them to do and support the empowerment of women
as
a peace and justice issue central to the mission of the Anglican
Communion
and the well-being of the world.

Further information about this event and others involving AWET and the
Episcopal/Anglican delegates to the U.N. Commission on the Status of
Women
may be obtained by contacting Kim Robey at the Office of Women's
Ministries,
Episcopal Church Center, New York, NY 10017; telephone: 212.922.5346;
email:
krobey@episcopalchurch.org.

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