Tuesday, February 28, 2023, 12:00-1:30 pm via Zoom
Registration Link

Gender equality in women’s employment was dealt a blow by COVID-19. While female participation in the labor force picked up after the pandemic’s worst phase in 2020, it still remains under threat from risks that, if left unaddressed, could wash away the progress made in gender equality in the past decade. (Deloitte Insight, January 2022)

This meeting addressing COVID’s impact on women’s employment will be hosted by CWI’s, Dr. Alotta Taylor, Jeanette Lim Esbrook, Esq. and Ms. Sherry Klein.

COVID-19’s economic impact resulting in the widening gender disparity in the labor market has been a major worry. However, (Deloitte Insight, January 2022) stated with the pickup in economic activity since the second half of 2020 and a significant increase in the scale and pace of vaccinations around the world in 2021, female employment has recovered some of the lost ground. Yet this recovery isn’t without risks. Moreover, in countries where women have traditionally lagged far behind men, returning to the job market after losing out in 2020 may prove harder for mothers who took up extensive childcare responsibilities during the pandemic. And as government aid fizzles out in many parts of the world, single parents will find it even more difficult to keep up with childcare and other household expenses. COVID also increased the viability of virtual work, but little is known about it’s positive or negative impact on women.

This meeting will be informed by the following speakers who will present information on the impact of COVID-19 on women’s employment and how return to work can be furthered by attention to policies such as increases in child-care options, virtual work options, and paid family leave.

Julie Vogtman (she/her), Director of Job Quality & Senior Counsel for the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). Vogtman will provide an overview of 3 years of COVID including a survey she made about a year ago at the 2-yr. mark. The topics of impact on women and employment include: Caregiving, finances, economic impact, policy solutions including family paid leave.

At NWLC, Julie engages in research, policy analysis and advocacy, and public education to advance federal and state policies that benefit both women in low-paid jobs and their families, including higher wages, fair work scheduling practices, and childcare assistance. She has written extensively about women and the economy and the factors contributing to racial and gender pay disparities, including as a co-author of NWLC’s March 2022 report, Resilient But Not Recovered: After Two Years of the COVID-19 Crisis, Women Are Still Struggling. Julie Vogtman was quoted February 12, 2023 in a Washington Post article on women returning to work, “We are certainly seeing some very positive signs in the economy, but there are still disparities, both in and who is back to work and who is getting the best jobs,” referring to challenges such as paid sick leave and more affordable child care, that affect women of color and those with lower levels of education and income.

Prior to joining NWLC in 2010, Julie was an associate with Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, DC. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, where she served as an editor for the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, and holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Furman University.

Allison Wolff will discuss the impact of balancing working as a professional remotely with family and childcare responsibilities. As the Web Program Manager for NASA’s Space Operations and Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorates, Ms. Wolff is responsible for managing application development projects and operates as an advisor for Enterprise-level application governance and policy boards. She is a pragmatic innovator and works diligently to foster a culture of collaboration, diversity, and empowerment. Ms. Wolff implemented numerous successful initiatives at NASA including the Enterprise Platform approach for the Office of the Chief Information Officer, a data-driven business architecture for the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation and NASA IT Labs which was awarded FedScoop’s Federal IT Program of the Year and recognized as a finalist for the ACT-IAC Excellence.gov award for Enterprise Efficiency. Ms. Wolff was named a Computerworld Innovation Laureate, a NextGov Bold Award Finalist for Tech Innovation and was selected as a FedScoop 50 Most Inspiring Up & Comer in 2020. While NASA is her passion, her first love is her family. She approaches each day striving to make the world a better place for her three daughters and hopes to be an
exemplary leader in promoting work-life balance with a personal emphasis on physical and emotional wellness. She will share insights on NASA’s current and planned policies on virtual work and its impact on women.

Sarah Jane (SJ) Glynn, Senior Advisor, Women’s Bureau, US Department of Labor, co-authored a report issued by the DOL on the impact of COVID19 on women’s employment, visible here: Bearing the Cost. We hope she will be able to report on current and future federal policies on virtual versus in person work and its impact on women.

From the DOL website:

Sarah Jane (SJ) Glynn serves as a senior advisor for the Women’s Bureau. She is a labor sociologist and policy analyst with experience working at the national, state, and local level. Prior to joining the Department of Labor, SJ was a senior fellow with the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, where she previously held the role of director of women’s economic policy. SJ has spent her career researching and working to advance policies that help support employment and economic security for women and caregivers, including paid family and medical leave, paid sick days, workplace flexibility, and pay equity. Before beginning her career in policy work, SJ was an adjunct lecturer in sociology at Vanderbilt and Belmont universities. 

SJ received her bachelor’s degree in women’s studies with a concentration in LGBTQ studies from UCLA and her doctorate degree in sociology from Vanderbilt University. 

Here are some related resources on the topic:

• https://www.brookings.edu/essay/why-has-covid-19-been-especially-harmful-for-working-women/
• https://www.oxfam.org/en/5-ways-women-and-girls-have-been-hardest-hit-covid-19
• https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/women-work-and-family-during-covid-19-findings-from-the-kff-womens-health-survey/
• https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12889-022-13422-3.pdf
• https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26947/w26947.pdf
• https://leanin.org/women-in-the-workplace

Next CWI Zoom Noon Meeting: Tue. March 21 on DC Women’s  History Museums and Attractions

Tuesday, January, 24, 2023, 12-1:30pm via Zoom

Registration Link

Feminists need to understand the many ways federal and state governments can continue to protect rights to reproductive health care despite the Supreme Court overruling of Roe v. Wade longstanding constitutional protections for abortion rights. Our presenters will highlight many of the existing protections especially those at the federal level that are the focus of the Biden-Harris interagency Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access and Pres. Biden’s Executive order 14076 on “Securing Access to Reproductive and Other Healthcare Services”. They will highlight ways states are, or should be, implementing provisions to provide additional protections and also how reproductive justice organizations are working to educate and push for these provisions to provide easily accessible reproduction related health care. The Executive Director of Virginia Planned Parenthood will describe how they are identifying and protecting reproductive rights as well as advocating new approaches.

We have not been successful in finding a federal presenter from the interagency Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access co-chaired by Xavier Becerra, Sec. of HHS and Jennifer Klein, Director, White House Gender Policy Council or the Department of Justice Reproductive Rights Task Force. However, the White House is planning to have a near future meeting so Click here to sign-up for the White House women’s community newsletter. These federal resources are also helpful.

• https://reproductiverights.gov/
• FACT SHEET: President Biden to Sign Executive Order Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Services
• FACT SHEET: President Biden Issues Executive Order at the First Meeting of the Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access

Presenters:
Shaina Goodman, JD, Director for Reproductive Health and Rights, National Partnership for Women & Families. She received her JD, master’s in social work and bachelor’s degree in women & gender studies from Washington University in St. Louis and has a Maryland law license.  She will report on many of the federal activities and plans to protect abortion rights and access.  She will start by providing general principles on where federal laws and policies overpower those of state and local governments.

Jamie Lockhart, (she/her) serves as the Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, a statewide advocacy organization whose mission is to preserve and broaden access to reproductive health care through legislation, public education, electoral activity and litigation in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Previously, Jamie served as the National Director of Mission: Readiness, was recruited for campaigns in the Commonwealth of Virginia, including President Obama’s 2012 re-election, and served as a Legislative Assistant and Director of E-Communications for Congresswoman Diana DeGette. Jamie graduated magna cum laude from James Madison University and obtained a Master in Public Administration degree from the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a certified group fitness instructor, triathlete and mom to a toddler. Jamie will describe the current status and future possibilities for abortion rights in VA.

Tuesday, October, 25, 2022, 12-1:30pm via Zoom

Registration Link

Having a Say in the Federal and State Policies: Strategies to Elect Feminists: Looking across the populations of all voters, what steps have been taken to impress the importance of this election and the need for feminists to speak up and vote? This CWI Zoom meeting will focus on the work that has been done and will continue to ensure that diverse populations turn out to solidify the recognition of feminism as an essential tenet in a safe democracy.

Presenters:
Connie Cordovilla, Co-President CWI. Connie is the former President of VA NOW and currently the VA NOW Treasurer and the VA NOW PAC Treasurer as well as an election officer in Fairfax County, VA for the last 20 years. She recently retired from the American Federation of Teachers Human Rights and Community Relations, where she handled women’s, LGBTQIA issues and worked on several presidential campaigns. Connie will chair the meeting and outline some important roles for feminists such as being a poll worker, election officer and activist/vote organizer.

Ms. Katherine (Kobby) Hoffman, Executive Vice President, VA NOW, Inc. Kobby Hoffman is the current Virginia NOW Executive Vice President as well as the National NOW Eastern District Representative for eight states including Delaware, District of Columbia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia. Presently, she works as a Grants and Contracts Administrator for a Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. Kobby will discuss strategies for reaching young feminist voters such as the work of VA NOW and the Feminist Majority in working with college students to get out the vote.

Madalene Xuan-Trang Mielke, President and CEO Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (https://www.apaics.org) is a nationally recognized civil rights leader with 25 years of expertise in political campaigns, training and fundraising. We are delighted she will share her wisdom on effective strategies to support the implementation of progressive and feminist political goals particularly among the varied Asian Pacific American Populations. She graduated from Tulane University and is a mentor of the Newcomb College Institute Women to Women Mentoring Program and Georgetown University Politics Mentoring Program.

On 10/6/2022 Msmagazine.com published “A Feminist Guide to the 2022 Midterms” which provides a general review of the challenges and strategies of many election issues. See https://msmagazine.com/2022/10/06/2022- midterms-how-to-vote/?omhide=true&utm_medium=email&utm_source=everyaction&emci=21f2455f-8546-ed11-b495- 002248258d38&emdi=88c845fa-0947-ed11-b495-002248258d38&ceid=404269

Tuesday, June 28, 2022, 12:00-1:30 pm via Zoom
Registration Link

Many are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX by noting the improvements in decreasing sex discrimination in education since 1972, but seeing that full equality has not been achieved. The Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues (CWI) is a member of the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE), which just published its 5 year report on “Title IX at 50” available on its website: available on its website: https://ncwge.org.

This CWI meeting on Title IX builds on the history and involvement of many leaders in implementing and monitoring its achievements. Dr. Bernice Sandler, often called the Godmother of Title IX, was a CWI Board Member. Our first presenter, Jeanette Lim Esbrook, Esq., a CWI Board Member and VP, Legal Affairs, was an early and longtime leader of the Office for Civil Rights in the US Department of Education. Jeanette will provide a history of the Title IX legislation, the early legal challenges to Title IX jurisdiction and how Title IX litigation, Congressional legislation and OCR policy were used to establish rights for gender equity under Title IX.

Shiwali Patel, Esq. from the National Women’s Law Center will focus on sexual harassment and comment on the new proposed Biden Administration Title IX Regulations to correct the regulations issued in 2020 by Betsy De Vos, which counteracted long term guidance on how to help victims of sexual harassment and assault. If the new regulations have not been issued, she will describe what she hopes will be included, such as how sex discrimination also covers discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Amy L. Katz, Esq., a Cooperating Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, will discuss several issue briefs with sometimes conflicting insights from the NCWGE report on Title IX at 50: Sex Segregation, Gender and Race Conscious Programs, and Science, Technology and Engineering, (STEM) and Career, Technology Education (CTE). She will share her conclusions on the best Title IX related solutions for progress in these areas.

Sue Klein, Ed.D., CWI Co-President and Education Equity Director, Feminist Majority Foundation, will discuss the NCWGE brief on Title IX Coordinators and the importance of federal funding and assistance for their key implementation work as outlined in the Gender Equity Education Act.

Please join us at this meeting by registering here.

Next CWI meeting: 9-27-22.  Please send us your suggestions for meeting topics for 2022-23.

Tuesday, May 24, 2022, 12:00-1:30 pm via Zoom
May 2022 Registration Link

This CWI meeting will be hosted by Nancy Hogshead-Makar, J.D., and Donna Lopiano, Ph.D., who are members of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group. (https://womenssportspolicy.org/) The WSPWG’s mission is to affirm the legal permissibility of separate-sex competitive sports while restructuring sport to include transgender women and transgender men. Sport can include transgender women without defeating the purpose of the “girls’ and women’s” sport categories. This is especially important today as it is expected that the soon-to-be released Department of Education Title IX Regulations will clarify that prohibited sex discrimination includes distinctions on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Ross Tucker, Ph.D., is a sports scientist from South Africa. Dr. Tucker was involved in the World Rugby Transgender Guidelines, prohibiting transwomen’s participation. In addition to his scholarly work and consulting, Dr. Tucker runs the Science of Sport podcast and has published and studied the role of testosterone in sport.

Dr. Tucker will discuss the scientific research on testosterone and effect on the human body. He will discuss the process relied upon for the International Rugby Federation’s decision to ban transgender women from women’s sport, particularly as they considered their responsibility for women’s brain health and concussion frequency. 

Prof. Ross Tucker, Ph.D.
The Science of Sport: http://www.sportsscientists.com/
Twitter: @scienceofsport / Facebook: The Science of Sport

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, J.D., is a three-time Olympic Gold Medalist Swimmer, a feminist professor of law, and CEO of Champion Women. The non-profit provides legal advocacy for Girls and Women in Sport (https://ChampionWomen.org). She is widely published, from scholarly and lay articles, Congressional testimonies, to amicus briefs. She co-authored Equal Play, Title IX and Social Change and the NCAA’s Pregnant and Parenting Student-Athletes; Resources and Model Polices. She served as the fourth president of Women’s Sport Foundation and continued serving as their Director of Advocacy for years. From 2003 – 2012 she was the Co-Chair of American Bar Association Committee on the Rights of Women.  She is a member of and has received many awards from a wide range of women’s organizations, including NOW.

Hogshead-Makar & Champion Women’s excellent work at protecting athletes from sexual abuse is now under attack by former-volleyball Coach Rick Butler, who is banned from USA Volleyball and the AAU for sexually abusing his minor athletes. He is suing her for $250 million for “interfering with his business relationships.” See her GoFundMe here: https://gofund.me/5c3bcc41

Nancy will be talking about the legality of sex-segregation in sports, and the purposes served by a “separate but equal” sport construct. 

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, J.D., OLY
CEO, Champion Women, https://www.facebook.com/iChampionWomen / www.TitleIXSchools.com / www.ChampionWomen.org Twitter @Hogshead3Au @iChampionWomen

Donna Lopiano, Ph.D., is the president and founder of Sport Management Resources (SMR) and an adjunct professor on sport-related topics. Dr. Lopiano was named one of “The 10 Most Powerful Women in Sports” by Fox Sports, and as one of “The 100 Most Influential People in Sports” by the Sporting News. She was the CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation from 1992-2007. She has been nationally and internationally recognized for her leadership advocating for gender equity in sports by the International Olympic Committee, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports, the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators, and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.

Dr. Lopiano served as the University of Texas at Austin Director of Women’s Athletics for 18 years and is a past-president of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. During her tenure at Texas, she constructed what many believed to be the premiere women’s athletics program in the country; twice earning the top program in the nation award. As an athlete, Dr. Lopiano participated in six national softball championships, and has been inducted into in the National Softball Hall of Fame.

Dr. Lopiano will discuss the architecture of sport and sport governance issues with transgender inclusion.
Donna A. Lopiano, Ph.D.
President, Sports Management Resources

Tuesday, April 26, 2022, 12:00-1:30 pm via Zoom
Registration Link

CWI ‘s April 26^th Noon Zoom Meeting will focus on the discussion of the disproportionately harsh effect of school discipline policies in pushing out students, marginalized due to intersectional markers such as color, ethnicity, gender orientation and economic status. Our speakers will present facts and statistics that will outline the crisis that social justice advocates recognize and are united in working to undo in order to create a nondiscriminatory administration of school discipline. This meeting will be hosted by CWI’s Board co-president, Connie Cordovilla.  Our distinguished presenters are:

Sabrina Bernadel (She/ her/hers), Equal Justice Works Fellow, National Women’s Law Center, will focus her portion on how Black girls are disproportionately disciplined and policed in schools, leading to school pushout and their involvement in the school-to-prison pipeline. She will explain concepts like “adultification bias” and intersectionality and how they play out in the education context. Sabrina will discuss what advocates can do to ensure safe, inclusive schools for girls of color and all students.

Dara Baldwin (She/her/hers), National Policy Director for the Center for Disability Rights, which is a co-convenor of the Federal School Discipline and Climate Coalition. She will discuss the difference between equality & equity; the reason both political parties are causing harm in this work; the federal legislation which her coalition supports and those they oppose; and finally the solutions and how we as a society can actually create a new world order, one where there is truly equal educational opportunities for all.

Valerie Slater, Esq. (She, her, hers) is Co-founder/Executive Director of RISE for Youth, a nonpartisan organization committed to dismantling the youth prison model and ensuring every space that impacts a young person’s life encourages growth and success. Her portion of the discussion will address the effects of school discipline policies and practices on youth in communities with high incidence of poverty, Black and Brown families, and the overuse of law enforcement to address the issues resulting from a failure to resource these communities appropriately. She will also touch on the erasure of childhood for students in these communities by the education system and other systems tasked with supporting their healthy transition to adulthood.

Please join us at this meeting by registering here.

Tentative: May 24 CWI Noon Zoom Meeting Equitable Treatment of Transwomen Athletes in Competition with Ciswomen Athletes featuring Nancy Hogshead Makar and Colleagues

Tuesday, March 22, 2022, 12:00-1:30 pm via Zoom
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CWI is delighted to celebrate this Women’s History Month with President Biden’s nomination of the first Black Woman, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court. CWI’s Vice President Legal Affairs, Jeanette Lim Esbrook, has issued this statement to endorse her confirmation. The Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues is an organization that addresses progress towards greater equity for women and girls in economic, health, education, social, political, and legal issues. Accordingly, we wholeheartedly support President Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court of the United States. This highest Court of the land should have representation of all citizens and the nomination of a Black woman to the Court is long overdue. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is eminently qualified as a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law school. She is a respected and experienced jurist with a life-long dedication to public service. We urge the Senate to confirm Judge Jackson to establish a Court that represents all citizens of the United States.

Kimberly Humphrey, Senior Legislative Counsel at the Alliance for Justice will provide an overview of the demographics of women in the US Judiciary and the strong progress of advocates and the Biden administration in adding women of color, and particularly Black women, to the federal bench. She will also discuss the ways in which the judiciary might be made more gender-conscious and supportive of feminist goals. Kimberly leads and coordinates federal advocacy to elevate the importance of the courts and judicial nominations for AFJ. She previously worked as a senior policy analyst in Baltimore’s Dept of Human Resources and as a Legislative Counsel for ACLU of Maryland. She has a J.D. from Catholic Univ. and an undergraduate degree from Spelman College.

Samantha Cyrulnik-Dercher, Senior Manager of the Fair Courts Program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund will update us on the vetting and confirmation process for Judge Jackson including the role of Civil Rights groups in supporting her confirmation. Sam previously served as Federal Policy Director of SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, where she advocated for LGBTQ-inclusive comprehensive sex education. She has been featured in Esquire, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, and other national publications. Before SIECUS, Sam spent four years in the office of then-Congressman Tim Walz (MN-01), working her way from intern to Acting Legislative Director. Sam earned her B.A. in political science from The George Washington Univ. and her J.D. from American Univ. Washington College of Law.

Erinn D. Martin, Director of Nominations and Cross-Cutting Policies, National Women’s Law Center, had been scheduled to speak, but will be unavailable as she has been invited to attend Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic hearings.

Please join us at this noon ET zoom meeting by registering here.

Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 12:00-1:30 pm via Zoom
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This meeting will be hosted by CWI’s, Dr. Alotta Taylor. Sherry Klein assisted in arranging this program.

Dr. C. Nicole Mason, President/CEO, Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), was named one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine. She is also the author of  Born Bright: A Young Girl’s Journey from Nothing to Something in America. She will focus on women’s wealth inequities and the ways to fix them.

“Prior to IWPR, Dr. Mason was the executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

At the start of the pandemic, she coined the term she-cession to describe the disproportionate impact of the employment and income losses on women. Dr. Mason has written hundreds of articles on women, poverty, and economic security. Her writing and commentary have been featured in the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, the Washington Post, Marie Claire, the Progressive, ESSENCE, Bustle, BIG THINK, Miami Herald, Democracy Now, and numerous NPR affiliates, among others.”

Dr. Ethlyn McQueen-Gibson, DNP, MSN, RN-BC, Director, Center for Gerontology Excellence (Hampton University), U.S. Army Nurse Corps veteran, will address topics related to older women of color. Dr. McQueen-Gibson is a School of Nursing Associate Professor at Hampton University, Board Chair of the American Heart Association, Member of the Governor’s COVID-19 Long Term Care Task Force, and the State COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Workgroup.

Her current clinical research focuses on the social, ethical, and behavioral implications (SEBI) of COVID-19 testing among underserved and/or vulnerable populations, addressing residents’ mistrust from communities of color of public health messaging and review of COVID-19 testing protocols within public housing in Southern Virginia, and how these protocols can be adapted to be more responsive to the needs of residents. This research is a partnership between Hampton University, Eastern Virginia Medical School and Norfolk State’s Center for Health Disparities.

Please join us at this meeting by registering and coming to our noon Feb. 22 zoom meeting here.

March 22 Noon Zoom CWI Women’s History Month Meeting: Women & the US Judiciary

Tuesday, January 25, 2022, 12:00-1:30 pm via Zoom
Registration Link

What do you think of when you read/hear “Women’s Health and Wealth Equity”? What is the correlation? What is the impact of health and wealth inequalities on women? What can we do about it? Attend this CWI noon zoom meeting on January 25th to find out.

Dr. Martha Burk, a long-time feminist activist and Money Editor of Ms Magazine, will focus on financial (Wealth) inequities.   Alanna Murrell, Special Projects Manager, Black Women’s Health Imperative, will address Health inequities. They both will highlight the intersection of the inequalities and what can be done to overcome them.  This meeting will be hosted by CWI’s, Holly Joseph. 

Dr. Burk will summarize how county, state, and federal government Pay Equity initiatives have fared.  Dr. Burk’s work, featured on the U.S. Department of Labor website, advises city, county, and state governments on gender pay equity and conducts internal pay analyses for private sector companies seeking to improve their understanding of wage gaps by gender and race.  She designed and implemented the first-in-the-nation equal pay contractor reporting initiatives for the State of New Mexico and the City of Albuquerque.  Dr. Burk holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology with an emphasis on research and statistics.

Alanna Murrell, Alanna Murrell is a Special Projects Manager for Black Women’s Health Imperative. She focuses heavily on Black women’s health, centering health advocacy and equity in environmental justice, reproductive justice, and maternal health. She is multi-faceted communication specialist, conversationalist, and empathic thought-leader amplifying the importance of vulnerable communication, intersectional storytelling, and community building. Her background is in business development, marketing, and communications.

The Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI) is the only national organization solely focused on promoting the physical, emotional and financial health and wellness of the nation’s 21 million Black women and girls.  For almost four decades, BWHI has served as the leading voice for health and wellness for Black women and girls across the country. Their mission is to advance health equity and social justice for Black women across the lifespan, eliminate racial and gender-based health inequities and deepen Black women’s resolve in becoming informed decision makers to achieve optimum health and wellness.

Please join us at this meeting by registering and coming to our noon Jan. 25 zoom meeting.

Our February 22 noon zoom meeting will feature some follow-up, with focus on Black Health and Wellness, which is this year’s Black History Month theme featuring: Dr. C. Nicole Mason, Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), Dr. Ethlyn McQueen-Gibson, Director, Center for Gerontology Excellence, Hampton University, and possibly an additional speaker.

Tuesday, October 26, 2021, 12:00-1:30 pm via Zoom

Free Registration Link

We are all worried about the disaster for women and girls and all the people in Afghanistan since the US withdrawal and the takeover by the Taliban in Aug. 2021. This CWI noon zoom meeting on October 26th will enable us to learn more about the disaster even for those who were fortunate enough to leave, the roles of women and girls in the education and the civic sectors, what is happening now, and what the US and others should do to avoid continued and new disasters.

This meeting is organized and will be emceed by CWI Co-President, Connie Cordovilla and Vice President for Global Issues, Megan Corrado, who worked for Women for Afghan Women and is now Director of Policy and Advocacy for the Alliance for Peacebuilding.

Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Feminist Majority, and publisher of Ms. Magazine, who has worked to save Afghan women since the first Taliban takeover will amplify her understanding of the current disaster and share her advice on what women’s organizations and activists should do now and in the future.

Saba, a prominent Afghan women’s and girls’ rights advocate and educator, will speak on the education of girls and women both before and after the current takeover of the Taliban.

Stacey Schamber, an American who worked with the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), providing technical assistance on the Better Peace Initiative, the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL), and issues of protection and psychosocial support has agreed to share her knowledge and insights based on her ongoing work with Afghan women.

We are inviting  additional Afgan women experts to share their insights during the discussion time.

Please join us at this meeting by registering and coming to our noon October 26 zoom meeting