Women's Concerns groups share ideas, information at Bi-national meeting

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 6 May 2000

WINNIPEG, Man. -- A small group of Mennonite women in Quebec are slowly making their collective voice known.

Calling themselves Femmes en Action (Women in Action), six women from Mennonite Brethren churches in the Montreal area have been exploring ways to unite Mennonite women in their province.

Ginette Rolland, who coordinates the committee which is linked to Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Women's Concerns, reported at that program's bi-national meeting in Winnipeg at the beginning of April.

Rolland is also overseeing the translation into French of brochures and articles on family violence and sexual abuse. She says there's a significant need for this kind of French-language Christian material. She hopes the translation process will be finished and printing begun in the fall.

"I honestly believe women [in Quebec] are dealing with difficult issues which aren't always being addressed by our churches within the community. Things like prevention and education," Rolland said later, referring to problems of sexual abuse and family violence.

The six founding women of Femmes en Action recently surveyed other Mennonite church women on their interests and concerns. Two main themes--the role of women in society and self-esteem-- emerged.

Events, such as an informal brunch and a fall retreat, are now being planned to encourage discussions on those topics. "We're not trying to be too directive," says Rolland about future goals. "I expect it to be a very long and slow process as with any kind of a significant change. That is what Christianity is all about, a healing process that challenges people towards wholeness in Christ."

Other meeting highlights:

U.S. participants presented MCC U.S.'s plan to become an anti-racist and anti-sexist organization. This was the first time that both U.S. and Canada's Women's Concerns committees have met together. Approximately 20 women attended the meetings, including five from the U.S.

"These meetings enabled Beth Graybill and myself, both of us new staff, our committees, and other associated staff to meet, discuss ideas, and learn more about each others' programming," says Kathryn Mitchell Loewen, co-ordinator of MCC Canada's Women's Concerns program. "It was a good opportunity for our committees to connect with each other." Beth Graybill is the MCC U.S. Women's Concerns co-ordinator.

Participants heard that MCC staff people have recently been assigned to family violence work in Manitoba and B.C. Eleanor Epp-Stobbe has become co-ordinator of Voices for Non-Violence, an MCC Manitoba program that acts in an education and resource role for Mennonite congregations dealing with violence and abuse issues. In B.C., Elsie Wiebe is working with a similar program, the Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Network.

Louise Stoltzfus became the new editor of the Women's Concerns Report in August, 1999. "We are committed to becoming inclusive and have been working to connect with our women of colour constituents," says Stoltzfus.

To that end, the Committees on Women's Concerns (Canada and the U.S.), which publishes the bi-monthly magazine, recently approved a proposal to begin paying compilers and writers. "We did this because the work women do, especially women of colour, is often taken for granted. We believe it is just to pay women for their work," she says.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org