Church Women United honors six for human rights work

UNITED NATIONS (UMNS) - Six women involved in human rights work - including three United Methodists - were honored Dec. 10 by Church Women United (CWU).

Receiving the CWU Human Rights Award were Charlotte Bunch, founder and executive director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey; Hillary Rodham Clinton, first lady of the United States; Linda Descano, director for social awareness investment at Smith Barney Asset Management; Dorothy Irene Height, chairwoman, National Council of Negro Women; Musimbi Kanyoro, general secretary, World YWCA; and Bari-Ellen Roberts, president of her own management training firm.

Focusing on prayer, Bible study, advocacy and action, CWU has promoted human rights since its beginnings nearly 60 years ago.  The ecumenical organization chose the annual observance of Human Rights Day to launch its newly established award.

The recipients "are all women of faith who are leading and lighting the way in this century and in the days to come," said CWU President Susan Shank Mix, during a press conference before the awards luncheon.

Kathleen Hurdy, the group's executive director, said CWU envisions three major challenges for the future:  finding better access to adequate health care, working on peaceful ends to global conflicts and decreasing the amount of violence against women and children.

"A violence-free society is a human right," she explained.  Besides war, rape and abuse, "there is the subtle violence of poverty which ravages women and children," she added.

Clinton's "tireless" work on behalf of children and families was noted in the presentation of the award.  A United Methodist, she did not attend the luncheon but was given the award during a prayer breakfast that morning at Riverside Church.

Height, a longtime member of St. Mark's United Methodist Church in New York and current resident of Washington, began her human and civil rights work on the national level in the 1930s.  But the 87-year-old told United Methodist News Service that the work is far from over.

"At this time, the human rights cause is more important than ever," said Height, who received the Medal of Freedom from President Clinton in 1994.

Height was a national executive staff member with YWCA for 33 years and was elected national president of the National Council of Negro Women in 1957.  The council now serves more than 4 million women.  She envisioned the plans for the National Centers for African American Women and the Dorothy I. Height Leadership Institute, which were launched in 1996.

Bunch, who has been active in the women's and civil rights movements for more than three decades, received her leadership training through the United Methodist Student Movement at Duke University, where she graduated in 1966.  She served on the movement's national council and was founding national president of an ecumenical group called the University Christian Movement.  She also served on the executive committee of the World Student Christian Federation from 1968-72.

"It was a very important introduction to working with social justice issues from a Christian perspective," she said about that period. "I consider everything I do as building from that foundation."

Bunch is a professor in the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.  She founded the Center for Women's Global Leadership in 1990.  She said her experience in the women's movement led her to believe the center was necessary. "I felt the human rights community didn't take seriously the human rights violations of women."

Kanyoro, a Lutheran from Kenya, said her work with the World YWCA involves speaking and writing about the empowerment of women in the more than 100 countries where the Y is active.

Recently, she visited a rural area of Kenya where women were going into homes to discuss the dangers of genital mutilation and suggesting cultural alternatives to that tradition.  Such work can be dangerous and, Kanyoro noted, "they are risking being rejected in their own communities."

Descano, a Roman Catholic, directs the social awareness investment program for Smith Barney Asset Management, a division of Salomon Smith Barney.  She also is chairwoman of the steering committee of the U.N. Financial Institutions Initiative on the Environment and serves on two U.S. federal advisory committees, the Environmental Financial Advisory Board and the Environment and Capital Markets Committee.

Roberts, an American Baptist, was the lead plaintiff in the largest discrimination suit in history in 1994 and wrote a book about her experience, Roberts vs. Texaco, True Story of Race and Corporate America. Texaco agreed to pay $176 million to nearly 1,400 African-American employees in November 1996.  She now has her own management-training firm, Bari-Ellen Roberts Inc., which focuses on diversity, sexual harassment and violence in the workplace.