Meg's update: 6-4-10: Religions for Peace

Religions for Peace is an inter-faith network of committed religious and lay members dedicated to promoting peace in our world. Planning priorities for this year are: Violence Against Women, and Obstretic Fistula. Planning reports were shared on what organizations are doing related to Fistula. I was most inspired in listening to reports from NCCC, Islamic Circle of North America, Lutheran Community, Reform Judaism, Buddhist Tradition and Sikh Association. I reported on the marvelous work being done by Maryknoll Lay Missioner, Liz Mach, who has been in Africa for some 32yrs. Liz has been working in the area of obstetric fistula since 1997. For the past eleven years she has been working at the Bugando Hospital, Mwanza, Tanzania. She has taught, trained nurses and doctors, and at one period, journalists to help them understand this problem and write about it with compassion. Her article, "Obstetric Fistula: the modern day cultic pollution" has been published in Nairobi, in a medical journal in London, and in the Catholic Institute in Germany. The fistula project is both local and global planning,reporting, and action orientated here in the states and abroad.