Convocations
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During the closing ceremony, participants endorsed a Peace Declaration and committed themselves to personal and institutional actions towards peace.
As Unitarian * Universalists and people of liberal faith, we foster global partnerships to promote peace and security and build a just, inclusive society.
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- Written by: Renee Hills, Australia
Colourful Hungarian traditional costumes; pride in handicrafts and cultural roots; deepening understanding of Unitarian history in Transylvania (a part of Romania that was Hungarian before WWI); radical Hungarian hospitality; greeting Unitarian friends from distant countries; meeting people I’d only ever seen on Zoom; finding sisters in unexpected places; sharing stories; soaking up the wisdom of so many impressive women – these were just a few of the inspiring moments at the 4th International Convocation of Unitarian Universalist Women held in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár in Hungarian) in Romania 5th-8th September, 2024.
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- Written by: Karen Kortsch, Illinois, USA
This was my second trip to Transylvania. My first trip for the ICUUW convocation in 2012 was very enlightening as I was a "newbie" to ICUUW and did not know what to expect at the time. This time I had a much better understanding of our organization and was eager to learn more about what could be done to link women of the different Unitarian and UU faith traditions.
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Fourth International Convocation of Unitarian*Universalist Women and People of Progressive Faiths
September 5–8, 2024 Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvár, Romania
Organized by the International Convocation of Unitarian Universalist Women
And UNOSZ, the National Organization of Unitarian Women of Romania
In partnership with the Hungarian Unitarian Church
About 150 women and supporters of gender equity from around the world gathered in the historic Unitarian region of Transylvania.
Convocation Theme: “Weaving a Tapestry of Peace and New Perspectives”
Connect – Collaborate – Create
Impressions of the 4th International Convocation
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4th Convocation of Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist Women and People of Progressive Faiths
Cluj-Napoca / Kolozsvár, Romania, 5-8 September 2024
Thursday, 5 September
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13:00 |
Registration opens |
ground floor foyer of János Zsigmond Unitarian High School |
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14:00 |
City tour, visit of the House of Religious Freedom (optional). Guides: Zsolt Ács, Viktória Barazsuly, and István K. Kovács. |
English-speaking groups meet at 13:50 in front of Unitarian Church in the city center |
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17:00 |
Break |
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17:30 |
Opening Ceremony |
Dávid Ferenc prayer room |
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18:30 |
Reception |
Felvinczi György Hall (Auditorium) |
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20:00 |
Chalice Circles |
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Friday, 6 September
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Friday Workshops
Fourth Convocation English-Language Workshops
Friday, September 6, 13:45 to 15:00
WOMEN WITH FIRE IN OUR BELLIES:
Making Our Entrepreneurial Way for Gender Equity as U/UU Historians
This workshop will empower women historians to strive and survive in uncovering our inclusive stories. Why? We need to learn from our Unitarian histories – but which history? The traditional stories are written mostly by men. Stories from our history which include the hidden power of women are vital to understanding our faith. Today, many modern women historians have a “fire in our bellies.” We seek the powerful women left out of the “old” stories and entrepreneurial opportunities to sustain our work. We will explore how women are now showing that there is not “one Unitarian history,” but many histories to inspire Unitarians’ future.
Presenters: All are Unitarians/Unitarian Universalists. Rev. Claudia Elferdink (US), Carol Maciel (Brazil), and Dr. Ágnes Flóra (Transylvania).
Maximum 30 participants
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Laura Pistarini Teixeira Nunes will lead the Global Sisters Conversations section of the Fourth Convocation.
The Global Sisters Conversations section continues the tradition of our previous convocations, focusing on building a shared understanding of current issues impacting women's lives locally and globally and articulate ways to address them.
At the Fourth Convocation, we will engage in constructive dialogue on intersecting global crises, uncertainties, and threats to peace and security, all disproportionately affecting women and girls. Our goal is to foster a global community of U*U women, a collective voice, and strong and effective partnerships toward a future that is more equitable, peaceful, and sustainable.
Laura is from Sao Paulo, Brazil and lives in Cluj, Romania. She is the peacebuilding advisor and program manager of PATRIR, the Peace Action Training and Research Institute of Romania. In her role at PATRIR, she is committed to long-term healing and supports Ukrainian civil society in peace education, youth empowerment, and reconciliation. As the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY) Regional Coordinator for Europe, Laura coordinates and communicates efforts of 25 member organizations within the European region. She has been selected for Kofi Annan Foundation's Changemakers 2024, an initiative that engages young leaders in intergenerational dialogue, fostering mutual learning and collaboration and exploring ways to build their capacity for positive action on the challenges of today.
In her own words: “I commit to facilitating the continuous shaping of our vision and strategy for peace in Europe in such a difficult and painful time in our history.”
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Hajnal Antal is the founder of Selected Bags, a socially and ecologically conscious Transylvanian enterprise that makes handbags from waste paper. Its mission is to transform waste into beauty, creating a unique bag line that promotes innovation with an eco-friendly touch.
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Hesna Al Ghaoui, a Prima Primissima Award-Winning Journalist, editor and reporter, author, Hungary
Over the past years she has been the correspondent of the Hungarian Television and has reported the world from more than 20 countries among them from several combat zones. The reports have been awarded a number of prestigious national and international Prizes. She has also shot documentaries, among others the one about the causes of child mortality in Uganda or about the challenges of the international aid system in Afghanistan. Throughout her career, she has interviewed prestigious personalities, such as Pope Shenuda III., Israeli President Shimon Peres, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Mousa, and world-famous experts like social psychologist Elliot Aronson, psychologist Philip Zimbardo and social psychologist Anthony Pratkanis.
In 2010 she wrote a book about her experiences gained on the front line, having the title of “On the Land of War”. Her own TV program Babel - The World with Hesna - has shown fascinating life stories during its 37 episodes. The journalist has been observing the appalling physical and mental effects of fear not only in combat zones but also in more peaceful countries. Therefore, she started to address the issue more thoroughly.
She looked for researches in order to study what happens in our brain and in our muscles when we feel fear and she also asked world famous social psychologists about how we can realize when fear disingenuously starts to control our habits and behaviour. She has discovered an incredible research about stress: that not only stress is able to affect our body and mind but it also works vice versa: we can learn to influence the physiological processes and their effects on our body. Basically, there is no slice of our lives which would not lead us somehow back to the issue of fear. Based on her experiences and interviews related to this theme, she wrote a book having the title of “Fear Bravely” published by Bookline in October 2017.
Following this she was invited to give a talk about her theme to dozens of cultural centers and companies (like Microsoft, Bosch, Samsung, Mercedes, Richter Gedeon, Citybank). Having talked to many people about the issue of fear – and raising two little children of her own – she realized how important it would be to address the children, too, with this topic, as fear is many times a taboo for the kids. So she wrote and illustrated her latest book, Holli, the Hero, about a little girl, who learns how to handle fear and difficult situations, thanks to a little monster, who teaches her that fear help us overcome difficult situations. She learns that it is totally ok to be afraid, what matters is what we channel this emotion.
Dr. Maureen K. Porter, co-leader of Pitt’s Institute for International Studies in Education (IISE), USA
Maureen has been an active member of First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh for nearly 20 years. She has served on the Social Justice Fund Committee, Campus Ministry Endowment, and advised Religious Education. After nearly a decade of sustained connection through the Khasi Hills Partnership Team, she finally was able to participate in a pilgrimage to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Kharang Children’s Village and witnessed the tremendous growth at the Annie Margaret Barr School that the Pittsburgh congregation so generously supports. With the Partnership Team she has co-created several dance- and music-filled Khasi Hills Sunday services. Her sermons draw vividly on first-hand moments of friendship and poignant examples of faith-filled progress. Maureen’s sermons are grounded in visually evocative accounts, and she appreciates the fine use of proverbs and metaphors. As an anthropologist, her storytelling regularly honors other UU's cultural concepts that give their theologies great meaning and local resonance.
Maureen’s interest in international exchanges and global citizenship began as a Rotary Exchange student to West Germany. It has been enriched throughout her professorship in Comparative and International Education Policy via consulting work in Egypt with the World Bank, in Washington DC with the Smithsonian and US Department of Education, in Ethiopia and Kenya with Fulbright, and throughout Appalachia with the National Science Foundation. Her current focus in on decolonizing European museums as part of global reconciliation projects. As the co-leader of Pitt’s Institute for International Studies in Education (IISE) she nurtures fledgling international partnerships and takes great joy in mentoring students as they cultivate their identities as global citizens and agents of change.
Dr. Porter has published and presented multilingually on women’s leadership and contributed to international NGOs’ programming for empowering people of all genders. She backs up words with action as a long-time Steering Committee member for Pitt’s Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program. She teaches core courses on gender and education as well as anchors anthropological seminars on schools and culture, fostering democratic competencies, building culturally responsive research repertoires, and learning from Indigenous education’s best practices. She teaches using many arts-based pedagogies and experiential learning that gets students out of the classroom.
Maureen is also, fittingly for our theme, a life-long fiber artist. Her grandmothers and mother nurtured her passion for sewing, quilting, painting, weaving and rugmaking during her farming childhood and through years in 4-H exhibiting at county and state fairs. She continues this commitment to showcasing women’s roles in pushing the boundaries of material culture through her consultations in textile arts with the MUREM museum of traditional clothing in Mexico and with Indigenous weavers in Andean Peru (where she designed and led service-learning programs for a decade). Maureen delights in customizing quilts for each of her PhD graduates to celebrate their unique scholarship and personal social justice passions.
Maureen has been married for 30 years to a feminist man whom she first met in Lutheran church preschool. They are truly proud of their two adult offspring, who love nature as much as the parents do (one is a biologist-geneticist and the other is in environmental science). This Mom’s boisterous home includes two service dogs and modified wheelchair components, quilts in progress, and books scattered everywhere.
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Cluj-Napoca is the capital of Romania’s Transylvania region and the second-most populous city in the country. Currently ranked the 10th most livable city in Europe, it is a major academic center, with a thriving arts and culture scene and a booming tech sector
The venues of the Convocation were the János Zsigmond Unitarian High School and the First Unitarian Church of Cluj/Kolozsvár, conveniently located next to each other in the city center.
The most famous son of the city, from a Unitarian perspective, is Francis David (Dávid Ferenc), the founder of the Hungarian Unitarian Church. Under the influence of his teachings, Prince John Sigismund (János Zsigmond) of Transylvania became a Unitarian; in 1568, at the Diet of Torda, an unprecedented decree of religious tolerance and denominational diversity was proclaimed, laying the foundations for freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
