Women’s Mobilization Program
The Religions for Peace Women’s
Mobilization Program was founded in 1998 in response to the enormous desires of
religious women around the world to collaborate on shared concerns for peace.
However, advancing women’s concerns has been a major part of Religions for
Peace’s mission since its founding, and a Women’s Conference has preceded each
of the organization’s seven World Assemblies, focusing on issues such as
development, peace education and human rights. In 1994, Religions for Peace
organized an International
Women’s Coordinating Committee whose members are chosen to achieve broad
geographic and religious representation.
Today, the Women’s Mobilization Program
convenes women religious leaders and representatives at the local, national,
regional and international levels to identify and examine major challenges to
the well being of women and humanity; to promote the sharing of traditions,
principles and values among religious women, which they then translate into
efforts to build more peaceful societies; to encourage and assist religious
women in identifying areas of common concern; and to facilitate multi-religious
collaborations in the organization’s fields of service.
In 2001 the program organized a Global
Network of Religious Women’s Organizations, an international, interactive
forum that allows religious women to communicate and work together as never
before.
The dedication to gender mainstreaming
that has always helped guide Religions for Peace assemblies, programs and other
activities reflects women’s primacy in sustaining religious communities and
extending their traditions. Working as lay activists, nuns, and public
ministers, or passing on their beliefs and rituals to their own families, women
have served throughout history as irreplaceable leaders within their religious
traditions.
Today, religious women are leading their
communities in confronting the great challenges of our time – poverty and
disease, human rights violations, war, and the proliferation of destructive
weapons. The Women’s Mobilization Program at Religions for Peace assists them in
their efforts and encourages collaboration among them; it also compiles and
disseminates information on their achievements and strategies, via training
programs, publications, seminars, and a twice-yearly newsletter.
The Program published a handbook in 2001,
A Woman’s Place: Religious Women as Public Actors, and offers workshops
around the world on women and major social challenges such as peacebuilding,
human rights, and HIV/AIDS.
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The Global Network of Religious Women’s
Organizations
Religions for Peace recognizes that religious women
around the world have enormous capacities for leadership and effective action in
all areas human development, and especially in those fields which the
organization works with e.g. conflict transformation, children’s issues,
development, disarmament and security, human rights and responsibilities, and
peace education.
Religions for Peace Women’s Mobilization Program in particular
began in 1998 to promote the role of religious women’s organizations in the
international community. The two overarching aims of the Women’s Mobilization
Program are to mainstream women of faith into all Religions for Peace’s programs
and to ensure that women’s concerns and perspectives are incorporated into
overall planning, implementation and evaluation. It was realized that a
systematic method of documentation and evaluation of religious women and women’s
organizations’ activities does not exist. With the lack of such a system there
is no mechanism, which can recognize and appreciate the unique work women of
faith do, or that can assist them in their endeavors.
In 2001 the program launched the first ever Global Network of
Religious Women’s Organizations. The Network serves as a tremendous resource
for use by women of all faiths in helping them to communicate and learn from
each other, and in disseminating their contact details and information among
major international agencies so as to facilitate access to resources and
communication. At present, the Global Network includes more that 450, Baha’i,
Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Multi-faith, Indigenous, Sikh and
Zoroastrian, religious women’s organizations. Some organizations in the network
are as large as 500 members and some constitute only 5 members. Click here to download a request to be included in our Network!
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Regional Women of Faith Network
PROFILES -Women of Faith
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