Virtual Commission on the Status of Women Side Event

Weren't able to be in New York City for the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations? You can still see our side event, organized with the ecumenical group Ecumenical Women at the UN! The panel of speakers from around the world featured Milcah Lalam, whose ministry, RECONCILE, in Southern Sudan, has been supported by Presbyterian Women and the Presbyterian Church (USA) in a variety of ways.

Here is the list of participants:

Maxine Nodel is the founder and principal of the Millennium Art Academy high school in the Bronx, a school that won the 2009 Lincoln Center Institute first-place award for most imaginative curriculum in New York City. She is also an adjunct lecturer of education at Lehman College, C.U.N.Y. and a 2006 Columbia Teachers College Cahn Fellow Distinguished Principal. In addition to devoting the past 25 years to urban education reform, Ms. Nodel is also a visual artist and writer. She received her B.F.A. in fine art from the Cooper Union for the Advancement and Art and her M.F.A. in creative writing from Brooklyn College.

The Rev. Dr. Surekha Nelavala is an ordained Lutheran minister from India, rostered in ELCA. She carries diverse and wider experience from advocacy, ordained ministry, administrative and teaching positions in which she served. She is committed to the cause of bringing scholarship and people together in developing praxis-oriented liberating hermeneutics of the Bible.

Cecilia Castillo is Continental Coordinator of the Women and Gender Justice Pastoral (PMJG) of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI), with presence in 20 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 2008 she has been Technical Coordinator of the Regional Shelter House of the Grande ABC, São Paulo, Brazil, which shelters women victims of domestic and inter-family violence, threatened with death by their husbands or partners.

Milcah Lalam is a peace building development specialist with special expertise in trauma healing, drama as therapy and story-telling. She works closely with women, children, youth, victims of rape and abuse, displaced persons, development and human rights workers in post-war contexts. She currently works with RECONCILE in South Sudan. She has facilitated peace building interventions with women and children and led reconciliation and trauma recovery processes initiated by women for women between communities experiencing inter-ethnic violence. As a psychosocial rehabilitation coordinator for RECONCILE, she developed the trauma recovery manuals and pioneered the use of drama for trauma awareness and healing. The work of RECONCILE is supported in part by The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Presbyterian Women.

The Rev. Heidi Neumark has worked in urban ministry for 30 years, mostly in the South Bronx and in Manhattan. She has worked with many women, children and young people impacted by poverty, violence, including domestic violence, and HIV/AIDS. She was a founding member of South Bronx Churches which gave rise to women leaders engaged in organizing work to improve their lives and community. Her present congregation also has a group called Mujeres en Progreso, a Latina support group that seeks to be a transformative community for women and their children.

Watch video of the side event (in 4 parts) here: