It's October and I haven't finished blogging about Camino- AH!

Saturday Sept 22
Saturday's breakfast at Grace Cathedral was nice, but what beats the one man show on his speaker bike? Not much...
In the morning I attended two workshops.

The first workshop was on Episcopal Migration Ministries http://www.episcopalchurch.org/emm.htm. This session really opened my eyes to the great work our church and our individual parishes are doing to help strangers in a strange land. My parish, All Saints in midtown, has a strong Refugee Ministry and this session really encouraged me to get involved. In the session we learned a lot about the ministry of the church helping anyone from refugees fleeing violence in the former Yugoslavia to victims of hurricane Katrina who have chosen to relocatem, creating new lives for their families in new cities. In the session we also had opportunities to share moments when we have felt different from everyone around us, moments that helped us identify with the position of migrants and refugees upon arrival in the U.S. If you are looking for a parish level activity with an opportunity to create relationships with people from other parts of the world, a migration/refugee ministry is the place for you.

The second workshop I attended was on women's empowerment, a subject near and dear to my heart through my undergraduate and graduate studies and a very important part of my job at CARE. This workshop was more experiential and round-table discussion oriented. Out of about 15 attendees, one was male and I think we were all proud he was there. As an introduction we all stated why we attended the workshop and his intital response was for his girlfriend sitting next to him, but he also said that in his life he is looking for a partner, an equal, something that is not common in Latin America where he is from. So kidding aside, he was there to learn about improving the position of women within communities and households. The session included a lot of dialogue on the position of women in the developing world and what can be done to give women more opportunities. We talked some about grassroots, community level development, which felt more tangible to the group than top-down influence from government to government (well that is my opinion, but I think others felt the same way :-) ). The activities in the session included answering a survey about the position of women in the developing world regarding education, health, economic opportunities, etc. This was an eye opener for me (I made probably the equivalent of a C). In most cases I assumed women had more power than they actually do. Another activity was to draw, sculpt, write out what women's empowerment means to you. Common themes were around education and women presenting themselves as strong and capable. It was a cool exercise. http://www.nationalecw.org/

I'll get back to you on the rest of the weekend soon. I promise.

Sarah