Happy New Year!
Look what WOW accomplished in 2018!
2018 started out with the WOW team fighting to protect life by meeting with many legislators to help them see that babies shouldn’t be discriminated against just because they have Down’s Syndrome. We also successfully stopped an attempt by lawmakers to institute Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Utah schools. Our Utah legislative team was happy to have Kursten Mason back as the Utah Legislative liaison for the WOW organization.
The Worldwide Organization for Women is growing! This year we brought many new team members into the WOW organization. Tepoerava Ka’Aumoana, probably the happiest Tahitian woman I’ve ever met, joined us as our head of WOW communications. This was a much needed post to fill, and WOW really enjoys working with her.
We also brought on Klarrissa Newman as a WOW chapter mentor. Klarissa is expanding our chapter reach in an effort to inform and empower more women around the globe.
We have also invited Jenipher Otieno, a professor from Nairobi, Kenya, to be part of the WOW organization. She is the new head of fundraising. Not only does Jenipher teach others how to fundraise, but has been helping families in Kenya for many many years as the head of the Family Resource Center there. We are so happy to have her wisdom and experience with our team.
Early on in the year WOW found out that our website had been hacked and damaged. It was beyond repair, so we had to fund the creation of a new website yet again, this time with heightened security. It is a sign that we are doing good things when malicious people go out of their way to try to stop us from doing our work. It was just one more confirmation that the work we are doing to strengthen families and protect women and children is very needed.
At the annual Conference on the Status of Women [CSW] at the United Nations, WOW presented about the importance of protecting religious liberties for women, nurturing basic life skills in girls and women in order to be more self-sustaining, and the importance of honoring mothers.
Our president, Nicholeen Peck, was instrumental in writing the Global Declaration of Mothers that was first released at the United Nations this year. This collaborative document acknowledges and empowers mothers all over the world.
In New York, the WOW organization spoke at a rally protesting UNICEF’s acceptance of and promotion of graphic sexual education to children around the world. The fight to protect the children from industrial sexualization is an on going fight for our organization.
Our president spoke to over 20,000 parents this year about how to improve family relationships and overall peace.
The KCCB [Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops] invited Nicholeen to speak for the Humane Vitae Golden Jubilee Celebration in Nairobi, Kenya. The celebration was all about protecting lives. The conference asked Nicholeen to address improving family relationships as well. Her talk was called The Family is the Key to the Success of the Humane Vitae.
While in Kenya, Nicholeen also spoke to a grass roots group of homeschooling parents who are trying to create strong families despite the troubles they face in society. She also made a special radio appearance for the Catholic radio station in the area.
While there, Nicholeen also did a some special presentations for the members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Nairobi area. Here is an excerpt from on of her talks.
Carol Ugochukwu, the president of WOW Africa, and her daughter Amaka, continue to serve the women, girls and families of Nigeria. They have had multiple activities to teach and benefit the people there. More information about these activities is included in a separate article.
WOW participated in the Protect Child Health Coalition conference in Omaha, Nebraska this fall. And, we maintained our partnership with the World Congress of Families, a global force calling for protection of the family and family values.
WOW exposed an international database scandal to the state of Utah and got the UEN [Utah Education Network] to take action to remove the content in the EBSCO database that was inappropriate for children. Here is a link to the news story done about this scandal.
Sadly, despite the great effort of the UEN the databases were not cleaned good enough by EBSCO and the work to clean up the Utah databases at libraries and schools is still ongoing. But, WOW is working very hard to inform people and get the problem resolved in order to protect Utah children.
WOW was asked to participate at the annual NAFFA [Native American Fatherhood and Families Association] convention, in Arizona, about strengthening family relationships and improving family communications.
WOW chapter meetings are continuing to happen, while more women are showing interest in starting WOW chapters in their areas.
Finally, WOW was honored to be asked to become the lead organization for the Empowered Families Coalition this year. The coalition is dedicated to advocating for families through the legislative process and through the education of leaders and families. This position will last for one year.
We Need Your Help!
WOW does so many things each year. But, we aren’t able to all we are asked to do because we don’t have enough funds to make it happen. Each member of the WOW board personally funds the majority of projects WOW is engaged in. We love the work, but can each only give so much out of our household budgets each year.
We need you! This year, 2019, we have already been invited to speak at the United Nations again, to speak at the World Congress in Italy, and to educate families and leaders in Benin and Nigeria. We simply cannot afford all these expenses alone.
If you believe in the work WOW is doing and are grateful to the time the WOW board gives without any recompense, then please help us continue this sacred work by making a donation to this mission to protect women and children by strengthening the family and society.