Behind the Scenes at Mary’s Pence
By Carol Conroy For the last ten months, I worked with Mary’s Pence as a full-time intern as part of Quaker Voluntary Service. During QVS, young adults work full-time in professional positions at community-based organizations, while living in an intentional community house. When I applied for QVS, I was very excited about the possibility […]
A Pilgrimage of Hope: Nuns on the Bus 2015
I’m not sure where along the way I began to recognize that this was a sacred journey, bringing hope and dignity to those we met, but I suspect it was at the first stop as we were greeted by the 6th grade class at St. Thomas Aquinas School in Indianapolis.
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She Who Walks With the Lions – Genesis, Oakland, CA
Octavia Moore, a Genesis youth intern from Oakland’s First Congregational Church, told her story of the challenges and costs of relying on the public bus to go to school and back home to a local environmental group.
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Stories of Success – Asylee Women Enterprise
When she arrived with that family she realized that they had taken her in to be the “third wife” to the husband. The other two wives had six children between them. T. was not allowed leave the home at all. She was locked inside all day with the children.
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What Mainstream Feminism is Missing
Let’s not forget that feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.” Feminism is not trying to make yourself the woman who’s on top, it’s about striving for equality for all.
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Where Have All the Children Gone?
The Baltimore Sun paper recently reported that there is no longer a surge of minors crossing into the U.S. So, where are they? On a recent trip to El Salvador, my friend and I discovered that these children and adults are still heading north for the same reasons.
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Humanizing Mothers & Daughters of Incarceration
We challenge stereotypes about who goes to prison and why. Conspire performer Marianna Marchesini is a single mother of two sons. She says, “Like most of us who have found ourselves in jail or prison, I’ve lost a great deal of self-confidence.”
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Meet Mary’s Pence: Nadine
Throughout her life, Nadine never believed she was limited because she was a woman, and it was with this attitude that she came to Mary’s Pence in 2011. She was especially attracted by our organization’s roots in Catholic Social Teaching and feminism – a combination you don’t see very often!
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What One Bequest Can Do!
Because of her bequest to Mary’s Pence earlier this year, we were able to move forward with a long-held dream: to help the women involved in our ESPERA loan pools improve the financial and marketing skills necessary to ensure the success of their small businesses.
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Violence in the Northern Triangle
A farming issue in El Salvador has been the use of genetically modified seeds. Monsanto owns the seeds, and farmers have to buy new ones for each planting season. If they should blow onto a neighboring farm, that owner can be sued.
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