The 66th Commission on the Status of Women was especially timely this year, as it continues to work to accelerate the hoped-for gender equality and empowerment of women.
Durstyne "Dusty" Farnan (Courtesy of Durstyne Farnan)
Perhaps the signs of the times in our world of rapid change call for a radical revisioning of religious formation. Prophetic voices call sisters to read these signs and follow in the footsteps of Jesus, the prophet.
When a class required me to choose an important issue and then design a teaching project around it, I chose domestic violence. I find women struggling with this issue often in my counseling work because of its great prevalence in Tanzania.
Founded in India in 1870, the Apostolic Carmel sisters started a century and a half of their devotion to educate girls in India at a time when very few girls were provided any formal education.
Participants called the 65th U.N. Commission on the Status of Women a success, with an estimated 25,000 people worldwide joining two weeks of online meetings. But they also noted a sense of impatience with the pace of progress.
The combination of economic and social stresses brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as restrictions on movement, have severely increased the number of women and girls facing abuse in almost all countries. Sisters are counseling couples and advocating for change.
Hundreds of women in Kenya are benefiting from a project of the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco. In Dagoreti, the project provides microloans to help women start small businesses in order to provide for their children.
For many women and girls in our country, the war zone is not the battlefield — their own homes are, and the war is orchestrated by their own partners or people who are supposed to protect them.
At the six houses of Sanjoepuram Children's Village in Chandpur, India, 17 nuns from four congregations serve 64 girls and women with disabilities, in one of the few institutions that offer inclusive education.
