Tag: mississippi

October Resource Review: Taking Action to End Domestic Violence

Posted on

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.

Faith in Women Presents

Posted on

An Evening with Dr. Willie Parker

 

Later this month Faith in Women will host Christian reproductive justice advocate Dr. Willie Parker for an evening conversation entitled “Called to Courage: Because of My Faith, Not in Spite of It” in Jackson, Mississippi.

Dr. Parker, an obstetrician/gynecologist who provides abortion care in some of the most underserved areas in the South including Mississippi, published his first book Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice, part-autobiographical and part-theological, in which he carefully and thoughtfully weaves together his moral grounding as a medical provider and a Christian helping women in need of his care during their reproductive journeys. You can read an excerpt of his book here.

“I learned a black-and-white faith, but I am not a black-and-white person.” 
–Dr. Willie Parker, Life’s Work

 

Event Details

Our time with Dr. Parker will build on conversations that Faith in Women hosted over the summer during our first ever virtual book club in which faith leaders and people of faith across the state of Mississippi read Life’s Work together and explored their own moral questions related to reproductive justice in community with one another. One of the book club participants commented:

“It was really helpful to hear other people’s perspectives, especially since I am very new to learning about Christian perspectives in favor of reproductive health and abortion care. It’s such a controversial topic that I don’t always feel comfortable bringing it up with other Christians but knowing that this group consisted of people who opted in to reading and discussing the topic made it a safe place to voice questions.”

Interviewing Dr. Parker is Katey Zeh, a strategist, writer, and educator who works with nonprofits and faith communities on organizing for social change. She holds a Masters of Divinity from Yale University and is the author of the forthcoming book Women Rise Up, which will be published by the FAR Press in March of 2018. 

Zeh and Parker are friends and colleagues in their work on the board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Expect their conversation to be rooted in faith, justice, and a shared understanding of the sacred worth of women.

Registration Information

This event will be by invitation-only. If you would like to request admission, please contact a member of our staff.  Pre-registration is required for all attendees.

 

 

August Partner Highlight: Moore Community House

Posted on

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

Posted on

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

Posted on

 

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!