Dear members and friends,
An organization like ours is all about the people who make it what it is. We have members working together in various committees, task forces and project teams. Let me introduce you to one group:
The United Nations Advocacy team is bringing UU values to the UN, helping our members better understand the work the UN is doing around the world, especially for women’s rights, and advocating for gender equity. A delegation of over 20 of our members represented us at the UN Commission on the Status of Women from March 10 to 21, 2025. Our organization has consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Committee. Our members attended sessions at the UN itself as well as some of the hundreds of parallel events being held during this time, learning and making contacts with other activist women.
Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls is goal #5 goal of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. At the current rate of progress, it’ll be another 140 years until the world has achieved equal representation in leadership in the workplace or in government. What about in government? In the United States, women first had the right to participate in federal elections in 1920. It wasn’t until 2013 that Congress included 100 women in its 535 members. We currently have 151 representatives identifying as women representing us in Congress. That’s 28%, but we make up 50.5% of the US population!
The UN Advocacy Team also organized a Spring Seminar in New York in March, on the weekend of March 15-16. Attendees came from eight countries: Bolivia, Canada, Germany, Hungary, India, Romania, Switzerland and the United States.
An organization like ours is all about the people who make it what it is. At the end of 2024, we thanked Zsófi (Zsófia Sztranyiczki), our long-term executive director, for all the wonderful work she had done for the organization. Zsófi had decided to step down to spend more time with her family; she remains an important volunteer in our organization. Karen Kortsch, our immediate past president, agreed to serve as interim executive director, and we have Gretchen who helps us with communications. For example, she is helping our newsletter editor Vicki get this newsletter out to you.
An organization like ours is all about the people who make it what it is. Our members serving on our Board of Directors come together from many geographic places. Working together globally has its own challenges. Just finding a time to meet that works for all requires flexibility, with some members getting up very early and others staying up very late! Our last meeting required one member to get up at 4 AM and another to stay up until almost 1 AM. Crazy! Learning how to best work together across the globe is very much part of our mission: we connect women with women, and in our work we learn best practices for right relations.
How can you get involved in our organization? If we were a local organization, you’d show up to a local event, meet everyone and join a smaller group focused on one of our objectives. How do you do that when we meet and work online almost all of the time? Do you want to work on connecting women with women? Want to work on putting together our Tuesday gatherings where we introduce women to women and share learnings? Want to help us get the funding we need for our projects? Have an idea for a project that you and others could work on together? We will be a lot stronger when you decide to play an active role. Let us know your ideas, what your interests are, and we will connect you with other women within our organization and get you started! Send an email to