8,000 Women Gather in Anaheim to Raise Concerns about Women and Children
Contact:
Kelly C. Martini, communications director/information officer,
United Methodist Women's Division
Press Room: 714-765-2098; Cell Phone: 610-996-2124; Office Phone: 212-870-3729
NEW YORK, April 24 -- Nearly 8,000 women from the U.S. and around the world will attend the four-day United Methodist Women's Assembly on May 4-7 in Anaheim, Calif., to raise concerns and take action on the plight of women, children and youth nationally and internationally. The assembly will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Highlights for media coverage:
- Thursday, May 4, 7:00 p.m.-The opening worship will feature music representing the diversity in the L.A. area and participants attending, including Latino, Tongan, African, Native American and Japanese Taiko drumming.
- Friday, May 5, 9:00 a.m. -Sanctified Soul jahz, a San Diego-based teenage gospel rock group, comprised of the children of female ex-offenders, will offer testimonies and sing about pain and hope. The rock group grew out of New Entra Casa, a unique rehabilitation program that has given female ex-offenders and their families a place to live and skills for life.
- Friday, May 5, 10:00 a.m. -- Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Kenyan 2007 presidential candidate Wahu Kaara will speak on the urgency in fighting global poverty. Kaara, the ecumenical program coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals at the All Africa Conference of Churches, is also founder and coordinator of the Kenya Debt Relief Network.
- Friday, May 5, 8:30 p.m. - Award-winning actress, playwright, and writer, Anna Deavere Smith, will give a one-woman performance focusing on social justice issues pertinent to women and children. Ms. Smith is best-known for dramatic interpretations of controversial events from multiple viewpoints, including civil unrest following the Rodney King verdict.
- Saturday, May 6, 7:00 a.m. -- Some 700 United Methodist Women members from around the United States will "Walk for Mission" to raise funds and awareness for programs and projects supporting women and children. The 5-K walk starts at the Anaheim, Calif., Marriott and loops two times around Convention Way.
- Saturday, May 6, 9:00 a.m. -- Grammy Award-winner Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls joins her father Don E. Saliers of Candler School of Theology, to speak on music and spirituality, based on their book, "A Song to Sing, A Life to Live".
- Saturday, May 6, 10:00 a.m. -- Bolivian cabinet member and workers' rights activist Casimira Rodriguez Romero will tackle the common threads of workers globally. Rodriguez is chief executive of the National Federation of Household Workers, a union that successfully lobbied the Bolivian Parliament to pass the Household Workers Law in 2003. California teenager Kim Hallowell, an activist against child labor, who started a "Free the Children" book club, will join Ms. Romero.
- Saturday, May 6, 8 p.m. -- Clark Atlanta University Steppers carrying on an African-American tradition that was highlighted at the 1996 Olympic Games and Ewha High School Alumni Choir, a historic school in Seoul, Korea, will perform for the women who founded and funded these historic institutions.
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