Submitted by Peg Swain, Co-Chair
Members: Peg Swain, USA; Terri Michos, Germany/USA; Elgiva Shullai, India; Noel Lutomia, Kenya; Gizella Nagy, Romania; Karen Kortsch, USA, Beth O’Connell, USA; Annamaria Oltean, Romania; Emilie Jarrett, Belgium, and Zsofia Sztranyiczki, USA/Romania, ex-officio.
In 2023-24, we successfully applied to the Fall 2023 cycle for UU Funding Program; developed a Faithify-funded project; completed past projects and developed several programs and events focused on building ICUUW and serving our membership with a specific focus on supporting our upcoming Convocation in September 2024.
UU Funding Program (UUFP) Grants
Our Spring 2023 UUFP-funded project “Healing, Coping, and Growing: Enhancing Women's Mental Well-Being and Resilience,” in partnership with the Unitarian Women’s Association of Romania (UNOSZ), involved three successful training events. UNOSZ is currently developing a training handbook for distribution in Hungarian. A report of one of these events can be found on our website.
Our Fall 2023 UUFP-funded projects are “Facing the Future Together,” to build ICUUW’s U*U organizations network and develop our next five-year strategic plan; and being a part of the “UU Related Ministries Network” project to support small UU organizations’ infrastructure: Help Fund A Vision for the Future.
Crowdfunding Campaigns
On-going: The successful Spring 2022 Faithify campaign “Urgent: Support Families Fleeing War in Ukraine” in partnership with the Providence Charity Organization of the Hungarian Unitarian Church, was followed by a direct appeal on the ICUUW website in 2023: Supporting the Education of Ukrainian Refugee Children in Kolozsvár/Cluj
The Fall 2022 Faithify project “Young Women’s Business Program,” in partnership with Tunawiri Pamoja organization in Western Kenya and led by former board member Noel Lutomia, is focusing on building young women’s capacities in the informal economy for long-term success. Please see a report.
The Spring 2023 Faithify campaign supported leaders of the Seng Kynthei Women’s Wing of the Unitarian Union of North East India to develop a project titled “Navchetna - A New Consciousness of Life Skills And Drug Education For School Children.” The program is being implemented this year by trained presenters in Sunday school classes. Please read the first report.
The Fall 2023 Faithify campaign successfully raised funds for scholarships for young activists to attend the 4th Convocation. A scholarship committee is evaluating and awarding scholarships on a rolling basis with an application cut-off in mid-August.
Other Programming
Our on-demand program for 2024 Virtual UUA General Assembly, whose theme is “Love Unites, Stories Ignite,” was successfully prepared by a sub-committee, featuring two Convocation scholarship recipients from Canada and India as well as several Board members.
International Women’s Day programming with UU Women’s Federation (UUWF)
At the UUWF’s invitation, we developed a live celebration of the 2024 theme “Investing in Women” with music, information, and introspection, held on our two usual programming days: Tuesday for ICUUW, and Thursday for UUWF. We plan to make this an annual collaboration.