January, 1997
Inside This Issue:
Chicago Women Connecting Banquet
Chicago Urban Women's Health Training Institute: Fall
Update
Women, Water, Environment and Health in Africa
Reception to Greet the Center's Spring Women's
Health Policy Research Scholar
UIC Great Cities Faculty Seed Fund Award:
Girls' Best Friend Foundation Collaboration: Preserving
Their Footprints
Merri Dee to Be Honored at Chicago Women Connecting Banquet
On March 27, 1997, Chicago Women Connecting (CWC) will host a gala banquet honoring Merri Dee, of WGN-TV. Ms. Dee was chosen to receive a lifetime tribute by CWC because her life experience has been one of courage and survival against great odds. Merri Dee's career in radio and television began at a time when few African-American women were in broadcasting. This major fund-raising event will be at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel. Chicago Women Connecting will use the proceeds to expand its programs and establish a community office.
A project of the Center for Research on Women and Gender, CWC originated in the work of Patricia Murphy, Ph.D., a Women's Health Policy Research Scholar at the Center in 1994. Chicago Women Connecting specifically addresses issues related to women and girls in their work lives, whether the work is waged or unwaged. The activities of the project include public education, research, organizing, direct action, systemic change, and service initiatives. The project is administered by Janice Kissner and funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
In October, 1995 and June, 1996, Chicago Women Connecting conducted two city-wide meetings to explore various aspects of domestic violence. The Vernon Park Church of God hosted both meetings. At the October meeting, service providers gathered to discuss the ways in which the effects of domestic violence affect women's ability to work consistently and productively. In June, leaders from a cross-section of Chicago's religious communities met to discuss the relationship between domestic violence prevention and religious teachings. The primary goal of the summit was to reaffirm that the right to a violence-free life for women should be taught by all religious groups.
The Work Advocates Training Program, a project of Chicago Women Connecting, educates trainees about issues of domestic violence, abuse, disability and work in the lives of women. The course covers the problem of violence in our society, the effects of domestic violence on women's work, skill development for assuming the peer work advocacy role, methods for accessing vocational resources, and a protocol for helping abuse survivors to enter the world of work. The course began on December 2, 1996 and will be held on Mondays and Saturdays through January 27, 1997. Six women are enrolled in the training program. All of the women have some history of domestic violence and were either sponsored or recommended by a service provider or a religious organization.
Students are using Dr. Patricia Murphy's A Career and Life Planning Guide for Women Survivors: Making the Connections Workbook. The women are also compiling a resource directory of domestic violence services based upon their own experiences to be used after the course in their advocacy role. In addition, the trainees will make a presentation to selected service providers, congregation or other community group about women, work, disability and abuse.
Chicago Urban Women's Health Training Institute: Fall Update
The Urban Women's Health Study Group, the faculty development phase of the emerging Chicago Urban Women's Health Training Institute, brings together a multidisciplinary group of participants to investigate the social and institutional relations, structures, and processes that affect the health of women in urban contexts, and to facilitate change in health care education, research, policy and practice.
This Fall, the group has worked toward developing an understanding of the biases that have shaped the field of economics and the implications for women; the social and economic position of many women in the justice system; the extent to which legal, health care, and other social systems are fragmented and often contradictory in efforts to address women's concerns; and the significance of social and community structures in supporting citizenship and participatory democracy.
Our seminars have been guided with the knowledge and expertise of Chicagoans June Lapidus, Roosevelt University and the Center for Popular Economics, Bernadine Dohrn, Northwestern University's Children and Family Justice Center, Jackie Reed, Westside Health Authority, and Edie Rassell, of Washington, D.C.'s Economic Policy Institute.
This Spring, the group is beginning to develop the structure of the Urban Women's Health Training Institute as well as the curriculum for its fellowship. Another goal is to develop funding to continue the project into the coming year.
Women, Water, Environment and Health in Africa
Folasade Iyun, Ph.D., will report on her research on the health of women in Africa's changing environment on February 18, 1997. Dr. Iyun will give her presentation in Room 206 of the Chicago Illini Union (828 S. Wolcott) at 4:00 p.m.; a reception will follow the presentation. Dr. Iyun has been a Senior Women's Health Policy Research Scholar since September, 1996. Her paper will focus on the impact of Africa's battered environment on women, specifically on the effects of so-called development projects on the water supply. The paper will highlight how the development projects of multinational corporations have compounded the water collection problems of African women and how the health and quality of life of women and female adolescents and children has been more compromised than that of men. For more details, please call the Center.
Reception to Greet the Center's Spring Women's Health Policy Research Scholar
On Thursday, January 23 from 3:30 to 5:30, the Center will host a reception to open the Spring Semester and introduce Maura Ryan, Ph.D., the Women's Health Policy Research Scholar. Dr. Ryan is currently assistant professor of Christian Ethics at the University of Notre Dame and a graduate in religious studies (ethics) at Yale University. Her project at CRWG is titled: Power and Powerlessness in Health Care Decision Making. Drawing on feminist theory and liberation ethics and theology, Dr. Ryan will work at developing a systematic ethic for the responsible use of power in health care decision-making based on a rich and positive conception of moral agency. The reception will be held in the Center's conference room on the fifth floor of the IIDD building (1640 W. Roosevelt Rd). Please call CRWG for further information. The Women's Health Policy Research program is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
UIC Great Cities Faculty Seed Fund Award:
Young Women in Chicago and Cook County:
Advocacy Effectiveness for Change
Congruent with CRWG's commitment to community service and collaborative
inquiry, CRWG has received funding from the Fall 1996 UIC Great Cities
Faculty Seed Fund to evaluate and document a project aimed at influencing
local government agencies to strengthen their programming for young women
and girls. In 1996, the Chicago Commission on Human Relations Advisory
Council on Women formed the Interagency Task Force on Girls. The Task
Force's project, "Making a Case for Girls", seeks to encourage
and support city and county agencies to focus attention on girls and to
create and enhance girl-centered programming, policies, and curricula.
By evaluating how "Making a Case for Girls" accomplishes its
goals, CRWG can facilitate ways in which this program can serve as a model
for other organizations which advocate for young women.
Association of American Colleges and Universities Grant Award:
Professing Science For and By Women
As part of the larger Women and Scientific Literacy: Building Two-Way Streets initiative, the Association of American Colleges and Universities is funding CRWG to facilitate faculty linkages between health scientists, basic scientists, and social scientists in promoting science for and by women. Six UIC faculty will serve as team members for this project, which seeks to develop faculty awareness of scholarship on science and gender and to integrate pedagogical and curricular changes reflecting this knowledge into undergraduate science and women's studies courses. Consisting of administrators and faculty already intensely involved in curriculum and faculty development, the team members are: Stephanie Riger, Ph.D., Katrin Schultheiss, Ph.D., Alice Dan, Ph.D., Rosalie Sagraves, Pharm.D., Sandra Theis, Ph.D., and Donald Wink, Ph.D.
Girls' Best Friend Foundation Collaboration: Preserving Their Footprints
CRWG is working with Girls' Best Friend Foundation (GBF) to assist their grantees in "preserving their footprints" and evaluating their projects. CRWG will provide resources to assist grantees and GBF in learning what works for girls in their programs and why. Resources to be provided by CRWG include: focused program development; written evaluation resources; evaluation workshop with grantees; six-month follow-up evaluation workshop with grantees; ongoing dialogue and communication between GBF and CRWG.