Category: Mississippi

Finding Hope in Troubling Times + Book Giveaway

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Finding hope in troubling times is essential to our well-being and sustains our energy as we engage  in the long work of resisting oppression and creating sustainable, positive change in the world. This month we want to share with you some of the innovative tools, inspiring events, and uplifting work happening now that gives us hope, heals our hearts, and strengthens our resolve to continue working for a more just, compassionate world. Be sure to enter our book giveaway. Information is at the bottom of the post. 

We want to hear from you! 

What gives you hope right now? Join the conversation in our Facebook group!

ResistBot 

Contacting our legislators doesn’t have to be a headache. Built and operated 100% by volunteers, ResistBot is a multi-platform tool that takes the headache out of contacting Congressional offices and other elected officials. If you’re having trouble getting in touch with a Congressional office about your concerns, ResistBot can ensure that your voice is heard by delivering your message on your behalf.

Anyone with a smartphone can text the word RESIST to 50409, and ResistBot identify your senators and representative. You can also connect with ResistBot through Twitter or Facebook messenger.  Type any message, and using simple commands, ResistBot will send your message for you and confirm that it has been delivered. It can remind you to take daily action, give you resources on what topics to write about, and even send your letter to your local paper for publication.

Learn more at resist.bot.

Mississippi Teens Advocating for Better Sexuality Education 

Young people are such an inspiration these days! Current Mississippi law requires sexuality education in public schools, but the quality of that education leaves a lot to be desired. A group of Mississippi teens, organized by our partner Teen Health Mississippi, is working to change the current law to ensure that all sexuality education curricula are medically-accurate, evidence-based, and cover a wide-range of ages.

The teens involved with Mississippi Youth Council, or MY Council, were recently featured in an MTV News segment on their Facebook page. Watch as these young folks organize, strategize, and advocate with their elected officials to change Mississippi law to ensure every young person has the information and support needed to make healthy decisions about their sexuality.

To learn more about MY Council, visit Teen Health Mississippi’s website.

Mississippi Book Festival

Sometimes we need a break from the digital world and just want a good, old-fashioned book. On August 18th at the Mississippi State Capitol hundreds of authors will join thousands of book-readers for a celebration of books, reading, and learning. Launched in 2015 by literary activists the annual Mississippi Book Festival has reached more than 6,400 people. This completely free event will feature panel discussions as well as music events and activities for kids. This year’s speaker line-up includes award-winning novelist Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied Sing which won the 2017 National Book Award.

To learn more, visit msbookfestival.com.

In honor of the Book Festival, Faith in Women is hosting a book giveaway

We’d like to help spark a little more joy in the world, so we’re passing on some good reads to our friends. If you’d like to be entered to win a free copy of Cecilie Richard’s Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead–My Life Story or Austin Channing Brown’s I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, please fill out this form by July 31st. The winners will be notified in August.

 

 

Sexuality Education Partner Highlight: Teen Health Mississippi

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At Faith in Women we know that access to quality sexuality education is critical for ensuring young people have the tools and information they need to lead healthy, happy lives. Mississippi parents know this too–that’s why they overwhelmingly support age-appropriate sexuality education in public schools.

As we continue to work toward universal, comprehensive sexuality education for every young person, we know that faith leaders have an important role to play both in providing and advocating for sex ed. Religious communities are uniquely positioned to minister to the full range of needs that young people have, including questions and concerns about their sexuality and relationships with one another. If you want to learn more about comprehensive sexuality education and get answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about these programs, please visit our past blog posts on these topics here and here.

Faith leaders in our network often ask us, “How do I get trained to provide sexuality education?”

This month we are excited to share about the inspiring work of our partners at Teen Health Mississippi, an organization providing essential training and resources to those who seek to offer research-based, developmentally-appropriate sexuality education in their communities. They offer a wide-range of affordable, accessible trainings for different audiences, including parents, teachers, and health practitioners.

In 2017 Faith in Women had an opportunity to participate in one of their Foundations Core Skills Training for Sex Ed, and last month we partnered up with Teen Health Mississippi to host one in Biloxi. If you couldn’t attend this training and are interested in attending one in the future, please send us an email, and we will be in touch to discuss this further.

The Foundations Core Skills Training is a one-day program designed to bolster participants’ facilitation skills, so that they are better prepared to offer sexuality education in their communities. Some of the components of the training include:

  • climate building in the classroom,
  • understanding state and local sex education policies,
  • facilitation techniques,
  • values clarification,
  • managing personal disclosure, and
  • handling difficult questions and harassing comments.

Those who wish to receive additional training may opt for a supplementary half-day workshop on topics such as:

  • commonly used sex education strategies,
  • LGBTQ inclusive sex education,
  • a trauma-informed approach to sex education, and
  • cultural proficiency in sex education.

Teen Health Mississippi is an essential resource for anyone and everyone invested in the health and well-being of our children and young people. Check out their website and resource page to learn more about all they have to offer. 

Celebrating Our Members

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As we kick off this new year at Faith in Women, we first want to take this opportunity to celebrate the amazing contributions of our supporters in 2017.  In December we asked you to participate in a year-end engagement survey to let us know about the work you have done in your communities to advance and advocate for reproductive health and rights in Mississippi–and we were blown away by what we learned from the responses!

Supporter Activities

Over the past year, our supporters have engaged in all kinds of activities, including:

  • Supporting the sexuality education work of Teen Health Mississippi that improves the lives of teens and young adults  
  • Contacting state and federal representatives about issues that impact marginalized communities, including immigration, police violence, Medicaid expansion, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
  • Championing pro-choice women running for elected office  
  • Attending lobby visits coordinated by Planned Parenthood Southeast
  • Conducting and presenting research on advocacy to academic conferences

We are amazed at the breadth and depth of the work you all do on a daily basis to make Mississippi a more just, compassionate place for women and girls.

Partnerships with Organizations 

At Faith in Women we know that working across justice movements is critical for long-term, sustainable social change, so were pleased to learn from all of you about how you support many other like-minded organizations through financial giving and volunteering, including:

About Our Members 

Our survey was helpful in learning more about the individuals who participate in our programs. Here are a few key pieces of data that we thought were most important to share:

  • Nearly all (88%) of our supporters identify with a particular faith tradition or spiritual practice
  • 56% of our membership participates regularly, either as leader or attendee, in a particular faith community
  • 31% of respondents identify as spiritual or religious but do not affiliate with a specific faith community at this time

Why is this important? Because it reinforces what we know to be true–that people of faith, even in Mississippi, want to see a more just world for women and girls. And while the majority of our members identify as people of faith or faith leaders (we are called Faith in Women, after all), we also have some members who do not personally belong to a faith tradition but still support the work we do to create spaces that allow for nuanced conversations and advocacy regarding faith and reproductive health, rights, and justice.

Responding to the Survey

One thing we heard loud and clear–you all want more! More opportunities to connect with each other locally, more in-person events to learn about issues, and more web-based activities to join. We’ll do our best to make this happen!

As we finish our planning for 2018, we will be prioritizing the program and education areas that our members most requested of us in the coming year:

  • Abortion in Mississippi
  • Reproductive Healthcare
  • Prevention of gender-based violence
  • Women’s economic security
  • Networking opportunities

Thanks to all of our members for a justice-focused year. We can’t wait to see what we accomplish together in 2018!

October Resource Review: Taking Action to End Domestic Violence

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October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We know that one in four women in the United States will suffer from some form of intimate-partner abuse during her lifetime. When we look at Mississippi, that number is much higher–40% or 2 in 5 Mississippi women have experienced sexual or domestic violence. Verbal abuse, physical abuse, reproductive coercion (i.e. sabotaging birth control methods), stalking, threatening, and financial abuse are all forms of domestic violence. Often perpetrators use multiple forms of abuse to control their partners.

As we reflect on how to respond to this endemic violence in our state and in all places, we must consider how we tend to the immediate needs of those who are suffering from abuse while we address the systems of oppression that have created and sustained this culture of violence that denies the sacred worth and dignity of so many.

The Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence (mcadv.org) offers training and other forms of technical assistance to shelters, support to survivors, and education for the wider Mississippi community to create social change and end domestic violence in the state. Their website includes a listing of every shelter in the state and what counties each of them serves.

In addition to direct services, the coalition advocates for better laws and policies, including the passage of SB 2680 in March of this year which modified Mississippi’s code to include “spousal domestic abuse” as a grounds for divorce. If you’d like to get involved with the coalition’s  work, you can visit their “Get Involved” page.

For forty years the FaithTrust Institute (faithtrustinstitute.org) has been working to end domestic and sexual violence, particularly within faith communities. Their community-specific trainings focus on a range of issues at the intersections of religion and domestic violence, including teen relationships, child abuse, and healthy boundary setting for religious leaders.

FaithTrust offers a number of free webinar-based trainings for advocates and a quarterly interactive, online “Meaningful Voices Book Club” to discuss fiction and nonfiction books that explore faith, justice, and ending domestic violence. Their most recent book club featured a discussion of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. If you’d like to be notified of future webinars, sign up for their newsletter here.

How Faith in Women is Involved

In 2016, Faith in Women was invited to participate on the Domestic Violence Task Force convened by Bishop Swanson of the Mississippi United Methodist Conference. Together the Task Force developed a mission and covenant for United Methodist churches across the state to commit to preventing and addressing intimate partner violence in their congregations and laid the groundwork for future educational opportunities for faith leaders and communities. Working alongside the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Conference held a series of training workshops throughout 2016 for clergy to better understand domestic violence and its complexities. Faith in Women is currently exploring a partnership with the Methodist Center for Ministry to develop further opportunities for faith leaders and congregations to learn and engage on this issue.

Faith in Women recognizes that addressing domestic violence in our faith spaces begins with creating a church culture that affirms the sacred worth of women and girls. From elevating women to positions of visible leadership, to teaching healthy relationships skills for young people within a comprehensive sex education program, there are many ways that churches can work to end domestic violence in their communities. Contact us for more information on how your church or faith community can get involved. Faith in Women has resources that can help you get started.

August Partner Highlight: Moore Community House

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Moore Community House

Our summer blog series features some of our partner organizations working in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement. This month we highlight Moore Community House. 

Moore Community House, a mission agency of United Methodist Women, served as the first organizational “home” for Faith in Women back in early 2015. Read on to learn more about how Moore Community House is transforming our state through building stronger communities for women and their families. 

Mission

Moore Community House (MCH) strives for flourishing Mississippi communities through their work to create economic security for women by providing affordable child care and job training. 

Brief History and Programs

Since 1924 MCH has been working to better the lives of families living on Mississippi’s coast. Located in East Biloxi, the organization has its roots in serving the children who worked–or whose parents worked–in the seafood factories at a time when there were no labor laws to protect workers or to prevent child labor abuses.

Today MCH has two major programs:

Early Head Start allows low-income parents to return to work while their children receive high-quality early child education from infancy through preschool. Their program covers a wide-variety of services including nutrition, counseling, school readiness, and employment. Early Head Start also works with pregnant women to make sure they stay healthy throughout their pregnancy, birth, and delivery. 

Women in Construction (WinC) provides career training for women in trade skills that will help them earn living wages.  Since 2008 more than 400 women have completed the pre-apprenticeship program, and just recently MCH received a $3.5 million federal grant to expand this initiative significantly over the next four years!

Supporting Faith in Women

Faith in Women owes its start to Carol Burnett, Director of Moore Community House. Seeing a need for progressive women-centered advocacy within the Mississippi faith community, Carol developed the idea to build a grassroots network of faith leaders and people of faith working in support of Mississippi women and their reproductive health. The idea quickly took root under the leadership of Ashley Peterson, becoming the Faith in Women network that we know today and operating under its own 501(c)3. Carol now serves as our Board President, guiding the vision of Faith in Women alongside WinC Program Director Julie Kuklinski and WinC Instructor Simone Agee.

Opportunities to Connect

There are a number of ways you can get involved with the work of the Moore Community House. Visit their website to make a donation, read up on recent news, or follow them on Facebook. To learn more about the Women in Construction program, you can follow their blog.

July Partner Highlight: Women’s Foundation of Mississippi

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Women’s Foundation of Mississippi

Our summer blog series features some of our partner organizations working in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement. This month we highlight the Women’s Foundation of Mississippi.

The Women’s Foundation of Mississippi has been a supporter of the work of Faith in Women since our earliest days. Here’s a little background on this organization and its powerful work!

Mission

The Women’s Foundation of Mississippi works to ensure that all women and girls in the state have economic stability, which is connected to their ability to make decisions around if and when to become pregnant. Both a grantmaking and advocacy organization, the foundation seeks to create social change that will allow Mississippi’s women and their families to live their lives with safety, health, and financial security because “when women thrive, Mississippi thrives.”

Brief History

Started in 1999 as a portfolio of the Community Foundation of Greater Jackson, the Women’s Foundation of Mississippi was officially launched in 2003 as the sole grantmaking entity focused on the well-being of Mississippi’s women and girls. In its first year the foundation gave $6,000 in grants, and by its fifth year it awarded $68,000.

By 2009 the Women’s Foundation had become its own separate entity. Shortly thereafter in 2011 the foundation committed to focusing on the need for proper sexuality education and teenage pregnancy prevention in the state.

Today the foundation awards more than $650,000 annually in grants to organizations across the state working to make Mississippi a better place for women and their families.

Supporting Faith in Women

Faith in Women has been a grantee of the Women’s Foundation since 2016. Funds from the foundation have allowed us to build our strengths in providing comprehensive sex education training and resources to faith communities around the state. Thanks to the Women’s Foundation, we have expanded our staff, built partnerships across Mississippi, and developed an inventory of curricula, trainings, and other sex ed resources to share with churches and faith communities.

Through 2018, we’ll be working to support churches and communities as they begin comprehensive sex ed programs for youth and parents. Contact us to get a sex ed program started in your church or town!

Opportunities to Connect

There are a number of ways you can support the work of the Women’s Foundation. Visit the “Get Involved” page on their website to make a donation, contact your legislators about key issues affecting women and girls, or sign up for email alerts. You can also follow the work of the foundation through their Facebook page and Twitter account.

May Resource Review: Books We’re Reading

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This month we are excited to pilot our first ever Faith in Women virtual book club! Some of our fantastic Mississippi-based faith leaders and activists are currently reading Life’s Work by Dr. Willie Parker. Together we’ll be engaging in some dynamic group discussions via video conference this week. To celebrate our latest endeavor, this month we’re highlighting five of our favorite faith + justice books for activists, clergy, and parents. (Don’t have time to pick one of these up? Not to worry! Check out our other posts on podcasts and documentaries we recommend.)

 

Sex + Faith: Talking with Your Child from Birth to Adolescence by Dr. Kate Ott

Does talking about sex with your children make you squeamish? It doesn’t have to! Written for parents and caregivers this book discusses how to talk about sexuality with kids at every stage of development. Readers will gain tools for incorporating faith values in their ongoing dialogue about sexuality in a way that is inclusive and supportive of sexual differences.

 

Reproductive Justice: An Introduction by Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger

Have you heard the phrase “reproductive justice” but you’re not exactly sure what it means? This book serves as a primer for anyone wanting to gain a better understanding of the intersectional approach of reproductive justice. Written for scholars, activists, and everyone in between, Reproductive Justice covers the history of the term,  examples from the field, and strategies for taking action today.

 

Good Christian Sex by Bromleigh McCleneghan

If you’re looking for an exploration of sexuality from a Christian perspective that doesn’t hinge on extremes, consider picking up a copy of McCleneghan’s Good Christian Sex: Why Chastity Isn’t the Only Option–And Other Things the Bible Says About Sex. Pulling from the insight of theologians and practitioners, this book is a refreshing change of pace from other takes on the bible and sex. Her nuanced, thoughtful perspective will engage both your head and your heart.

 

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

The United States currently incarcerates over 2 million of our citizens in public and private prisons. Why do we imprison so many people–and why are so many of those incarcerated people of color? Alexander traces the legacy of segregation laws that shapes today’s legislation and feeds into our system of mass incarceration. Both a much-needed history lesson and a call for justice, this book dispels the cultural myth of “colorblindness” once and for all. 

 

Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice by Willie Parker [Faith in Women Book Club Pick!]
When Dr. Willie Parker trained as an obstetrician and gynecologist, he never intended to become an abortion provider, but over time he realized that his Christian faith called him to help women in need of this particular form of medical care. Part memoir and part theological reflection,  Parker weaves together his faith, study of scripture, scientific training, and experience as an African American living in the South to make a moral argument for supporting women’s access to abortion.

Is there a book you’d like for us to feature in a future Faith in Women book club discussion? Would you like our help in starting a book club of your own featuring one of these books? Please send us an email. We’d love to hear from you!