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By ICUUW Staff

01 April 2025

The UN Advocacy Committee has been busy this year. As the only UU organization with an ongoing presence at the UN this year, we found a lot of work to do. The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) remains a major focus, but we have branched out to other meetings.

We meet monthly on the first Friday of the month, with an average of 10-11 participants.

Eight of us (Ellen Barfield, Carmen Capriles, Tina Huesing, Carol Huston, Bruce Knotts, Karen Kortsch, Beth O’Connell, and Genia Peterson) have Annual Passes to the UN for 2024, which means we can access the UN Campus at any time. Lee Boeke Burke, Marjorie Davidson, Phyllis Marsh, Hajnal Minger, Debra Pritchard, and Julie Steinbach came to New York for several meetings. A former Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist-United Nations Office (UU-UNO), Fran Mercer, was with us in March for the 68th Session of CSW (CSW68).

Last July, a delegation of six attended the UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF). This two-week event receives reports on the progress being made on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 17 goals that provide a roadmap for a better world. The meeting also allows about 40 countries to offer reports on their work toward the SDGs. Romania was one of the reporting countries, and we made contact with a woman from a Romanian NGO. Hajnal and Lee went with her to a meeting at the Romanian embassy!

In September, we attended sessions of the crowded UN General Assembly virtually, and a few of us attended, in person, the People’s Assembly at the Church Center, across the street from the UN headquarters. Carmen Capriles was one of the organizers of the People’s Assembly; she also attended the Climate Change Conference (COP28) in November-December in Dubai and reported back to us on her activities and impressions.

We are monitoring the development of the Draft Articles on Crimes Against Humanity as UN consideration of a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty continues. Marjorie, Beth, Bruce, and Genia attended Civil Society meetings on the subject, led by the Global Justice Center. There was also discussion on how to advance gender justice in the Draft Articles.

CSW is still a massive, confusing event, but more of us are figuring out how it works and how to be in coalition with other groups. Our delegation of 11 attended daily briefings and many sessions on Gaza, Ukraine, and climate change. At a workshop on Ukraine, we discovered an organization that is supporting a Ukrainian language school in Romania – much like our work in partnership with Providence, the charity organization of the Hungarian Unitarian Church. And when Carol asked a question about it and identified our UU identity, we came into contact with a Canadian UU. Networking is important!

For CSW68 in March, we organized two parallel events: a webinar featuring organizations that provide solar lighting and solar cookers in Africa, and another that reported on ICUUW’s micro-finance program in Uganda and a young women’s business program in partnership with Tunawiri Pamoja in Kenya. It was good that these events were virtual. They attracted listeners in Africa who declared that they really needed this information for their own livelihood.

During the spring, Carmen, Beth, and Carol attended meetings of the Indigenous Peoples Forum and sessions on Funding for Development and a Civil Society Town Hall. Carmen was on the planning committee for a Civil Society Conference held in Nairobi in May. Former ICUUW board member Noel Lutomia was our representative there, but unfortunately she had to leave the meeting due to a family emergency. This conference was a planning session for the UN Summit of the Future; ICUUW will take part in that event in September.

We are active year-round with NGO CSW NY, the entity that organizes events for CSW, the Women’s Major Group (WMG), which is active around HLPF, and the US Women’s Caucus. Beth and Carol have joined a subcommittee of the US group, to help plan how we will work with the US Administration and Congress during the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Accords next spring.

Our work at the UN is important and exciting. The UN Advocacy Committee meets each month, usually on the first Friday. Join us!

Rev. Carol Huston, Committee Chair

Details

By ICUUW Staff

01 April 2025

The Outreach Committee of the ICUUW is responsible for increasing awareness of the ICUUW’s presence in Unitarian Universalism worldwide. We are also responsible for the STP (Share-the-Plate) Program. This year we had two goals.

1. In 2022 there were 9 STPs. We wanted to double this number in 2023, which we did. In 2023 there were 18 STPs. So far in 2024, we have recorded 10 STPs with months to go in the year. STP is any offering collected by a congregation for one week, one month or more. STP is accompanied by an informational announcement, a sermon, or an entire service on the purpose of the ICUUW.  Often this has been encouraged for March when International Women’s Day occurs, but any Sunday or month will do. Outreach has tried to increase the awareness within UU circles of the presence and support for the Mission, Vision, and Projects of the ICUUW.

2. Our second goal was to have a presence at UU meetings in Europe, India, Canada, and the USA. Gretchen Ohmann created flyers and publicity packs with a tabletop banner, photos for display, and other materials. Karen Kortsch and Denise Tracy attended the MidAmerica Region Annual meeting. Julie Steinbach attended the Pacific Western Regional Assembly in Denver, CO.  Julie also attended the PSWSAA - Pacific Southwest Service Area Assembly in Ventura, CA. We became aware that MidAmerica and [Pacific Western] Regions have independent charters, which the other 3 UU Regions do not; the former must have in-person annual meetings, and the latter do not have the same requirement. If UU meetings become primarily virtual events, it is unclear how we will get visibility. Besides, those who attend these meetings on behalf of ICUUW are paying their own travel, room, board, and conference entry fees.

3. For next year, we would like to work more closely with the membership committee to see if those people who are advocates for STP might be interested in becoming members.

4. We appreciate the support for our committee from Gretchen Ohmann. Her computer skills and marketing expertise have been a great help to us.

5. We have monthly meetings on the fourth Wednesday of most months at 9:30 am Central Time. We enjoy our meetings and feel we are helping expand awareness of the importance and presence of the ICUUW.

Respectfully Submitted,

Denise Tracy and Julie Steinbach, Co-Chairs

Audrey Brooks, Juliana Lightle, Vicki Roberts-Gassler, Justyna Borusinska, Sylvie Nyiramana, Gretchen Ohmann

Details

By ICUUW Staff

31 March 2025

Submitted by Peg Swain, Co-Chair

Members: Peg Swain, USA; Terri Michos, Germany/USA; Elgiva Shullai, India; Noel Lutomia, Kenya; Gizella Nagy, Romania; Karen Kortsch, USA, Beth O’Connell, USA; Annamaria Oltean, Romania; Emilie Jarrett, Belgium, and Zsofia Sztranyiczki, USA/Romania, ex-officio.

In 2023-24, we successfully applied to the Fall 2023 cycle for UU Funding Program; developed a Faithify-funded project; completed past projects and developed several programs and events focused on building ICUUW and serving our membership with a specific focus on supporting our upcoming Convocation in September 2024.

UU Funding Program (UUFP) Grants

Our Spring 2023 UUFP-funded project “Healing, Coping, and Growing: Enhancing Women's Mental Well-Being and Resilience,” in partnership with the Unitarian Women’s Association of Romania (UNOSZ), involved three successful training events. UNOSZ is currently developing a training handbook for distribution in Hungarian. A report of one of these events can be found on our website. 

Our Fall 2023 UUFP-funded projects are “Facing the Future Together,” to build ICUUW’s U*U organizations network and develop our next five-year strategic plan; and being a part of the “UU Related Ministries Network” project to support small UU organizations’ infrastructure: Help Fund A Vision for the Future.

Crowdfunding Campaigns

On-going: The successful Spring 2022 Faithify campaign “Urgent: Support Families Fleeing War in Ukraine” in partnership with the Providence Charity Organization of the Hungarian Unitarian Church, was followed by a direct appeal on the ICUUW website in 2023: Supporting the Education of Ukrainian Refugee Children in Kolozsvár/Cluj

The Fall 2022 Faithify project “Young Women’s Business Program,” in partnership with Tunawiri Pamoja organization in Western Kenya and led by former board member Noel Lutomia, is focusing on building young women’s capacities in the informal economy for long-term success. Please see a report. 

The Spring 2023 Faithify campaign supported leaders of the Seng Kynthei Women’s Wing of the Unitarian Union of North East India to develop a project titled “Navchetna - A New Consciousness of Life Skills And Drug Education For School Children.” The program is being implemented this year by trained presenters in Sunday school classes. Please read the first report.

The Fall 2023 Faithify campaign successfully raised funds for scholarships for young activists to attend the 4th Convocation. A scholarship committee is evaluating and awarding scholarships on a rolling basis with an application cut-off in mid-August. 

Other Programming

Our on-demand program for 2024 Virtual UUA General Assembly, whose theme is “Love Unites, Stories Ignite,” was successfully prepared by a sub-committee, featuring two Convocation scholarship recipients from Canada and India as well as several Board members. 

International Women’s Day programming with UU Women’s Federation (UUWF) 

At the UUWF’s invitation, we developed a live celebration of the 2024 theme “Investing in Women” with music, information, and introspection, held on our two usual programming days: Tuesday for ICUUW, and Thursday for UUWF. We plan to make this an annual collaboration.

Details

By ICUUW Staff

31 March 2025

For Annual meeting June 25, 2024

Renee Hills, Chair, with Lee Boeke-Burke, Genia Peterson

We continue the month-to-month activity of sending out membership reminder notices and thanking those who renew or join ICUUW. We work closely with our executive director Zsofia Sztranyiczki and rely on her excellent documentation of members’ details. We are constantly reviewing our processes and letters and thinking of ways to improve them.

A major new initiative has been the two membership calls organized and run by the Membership Committee. The first one, in mid-November 2023, titled Becoming Good Ancestors, invited members to share a little of their lives and talk about a woman who inspired them. The second one, in April 2024, celebrated International Mother Earth Day, with special guest Erin Boeke Burke, a sought-after presenter in high-level international conferences discussing sustainability challenges and opportunities. Well-attended and well-received, the Mother Earth Day event explored global sustainable development, especially the progress being made towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to energy, food, and water - and how this impacts women and girls worldwide.

These membership calls are an attempt to build connections between members as supporters of ICUUW.