Anglican women at an international conference in New York in March will hear Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, as a keynote speaker.
Edelman and panel speakers will discuss the theme “Repairing the World: Anglican Women’s Faith in Action” on March 6 at 3 p.m. in Synod Hall at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The public is invited.
The panel will be drawn from Anglican women meeting as delegates to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. Each panelist will describe how she relies on her faith to lead and sustain her while working to improve the lives of women and children. Panelists also will discuss how individuals can answer God’s call in their work.
About 35 women, representing more than one-half of the Anglican Communion’s provinces, are expected for the two-week conference. Thirty others from the United States and Canada will join them.
For the last two years, the Anglican Women’s Empowerment Taskforce, a diverse group of women founded by bishops’ spouses with assistance from the Women’s Ministries Office, has brought delegates to New York to share their work and faith before the U.N. commission.
Last year, the delegates discussed how they helped to change attitudes at home 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 of the Episcopal Church. “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.”
Women organizers say such voices also need to be heard in the political arenas of the United States and United Nations, especially at this year’s meeting, which marks the 10th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, an 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 United Nation's Division for the Advancement of Women.
More information is available from Kim Robey at the Office of Women’s Ministries at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, (212) 922-5354 or krobey@episcopalchurch.org.
