Work of Methodist women ranges from local to global
3/6/2003 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York
NEW YORK (UMNS) - Rosemary Wass knows firsthand the efforts that local churchwomen make to raise money for mission.
In
her community of York, England, the British Methodist laywoman has
taught Sunday school, served as a local preacher and worked within the
women's organization.
She also has moved beyond that community to
such posts as vice president of the British Methodist Conference in
1990-91, area president of the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting
Church Women from 1991 to 1996 and, since 2001, president of the 6
million-member federation.
Aware of the hard work on the local
level, Wass makes sure the organization uses its funds wisely.
"Methodist women are very good at raising money, and they like to know
what it's going to be used for," she told United Methodist News Service.
The
federation also wants to make the voices of its members heard, so Wass
was in New York the week of March 3 to attend sessions of the Commission
on the Status of Women meeting at the United Nations.
Speaking
during a March 4 panel discussion on "Women's Effective Response to
Violence," Wass outlined the steps that British and Irish Methodist
women had taken to combat sex tourism and the use of children in
prostitution and pornography.
During a 1993 seminar on those
issues, the Great Britain and Ireland Area of the World Federation of
Methodist Women noted with concern the "continuing reports that citizens
of developed countries traveling abroad may be encouraging the use of
children in prostitution and pornography." The group also confirmed its
commitment to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which
tries to protect children from sexual exploitation.
The women
circulated petitions calling for action by "Her Majesty's Government"
throughout Great Britain and provided members with sample letters and
postcards to send to members of Parliament.
In June 1994, with
90,000 signatures, "we bound rolls of petitions with pink rosebuds and
took them to (10) Downing St.," she said, referring to the British prime
minister's office. "We were not alone in our campaign. We had adopted
almost the same text as the U.N. and, in effect, joined other
organizations who had more experience than ourselves at things like this
- the Jubilee Trust and ECPAT, Doctor Barnados and the National
Children's Home.
"The petitions kept being returned full. They
were placed on shop counters with the cooperation of the owners. They
were taken out of the churches and into communities. They were signed by
men and women. The women needed to realize that we needed the support
of the men in order to speak for the whole community."
By June
1996, the Methodist women - bearing another 140,000 signatures - went
again to 10 Downing St., where they had a live interview with the BBC.
Supporting legislation was passed the next month.
The commitment
to that issue has continued, Wass said, noting that new legislation is
due to be introduced in the British Parliament regarding the commercial
sexual exploitation of children.
Each time it meets for a world
assembly, the federation votes on such issues for study and action by
its nine regional areas. "Some of the subjects are so huge you know
they'll be on the next agenda and the one after that," she observed.
During
the 10th world assembly in 2001, where Wass was elected president, the
selected issues for the next five-year period were gender justice,
children, HIV/AIDS, racism and violence. Underlying each issue, the
assembly recognized, is the fact that "poverty is a key factor in the
experience of most women, men and children."
Between assemblies,
each region holds a seminar that includes Bible study and a focus on
those issues, and each year, a region is assigned to develop study
materials for the organization's World Federation Day on one of the
issues. In 2003-04, for example, the West Africa area is developing
materials on HIV/AIDS.
Other goals that Wass has during her term,
which ends in 2006, include consideration of more e-mail
correspondence, development of a Web site and the establishment of a
database of Web sites on particular issues "that would help people
worldwide to have a wide access of resources."
The federation's
nine regional areas are Britain and Ireland/Europe, Europe Continental,
North America, Latin America, East Asia, West Asia, West Africa,
Southern and East Africa, and South Pacific. Each is represented by a
number of units. Those from North America, for example, are United
Methodist Women, women from the African Methodist Episcopal, African
Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal churches, and
women from Caribbean Methodist churches. Canadian women have associate
membership.
"Uniting" was added to the federation's name in 1996
to reflect membership in countries where the Methodist denomination had
merged with other denominations. Wass believes that addition both
enriched the spirituality and increased the diversity of the
organization.
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