Gather Together to Explore Ways We Can Improve Women’s Lives around the World… Join us to connect with others, Build lasting relationships, Share visions and aspirations, and Discover energies that can enrich and transform our lives.

Rebecca Adamson, Cherokee Nation
Rebecca Adamson, a member of the Cherokee Nation, founded First Nations Development Institute (1980) and First Peoples Worldwide (1997) to assist Indigenous communities in establishing asset-based economic development programs. Her work established a new field of culturally appropriate, values-driven development which created: the first reservation-based micro-enterprise loan fund in the United States - The Lakota Fund; the first tribal investment model; a national movement for reservation land reform; and legislation that established new standards of accountability regarding federal trust responsibility for Native Americans. Ms. Adamson's international work with First Peoples Worldwide created the first Aboriginal foundation in Australia - the LUMBA Community Foundation; established the capacity for the Sans Tribe to secure land tenure in traditional African homelands; launched an international corporate engagement strategy; and developed investment criteria protecting the rights of Indigenous people that have been adopted by a mutual fund, an index fund and numerous investment advisors.

Dr. Caren Grown, USA
Caren Grown is Economist-In-Residence at American University. Her current research focuses on assets and women's well-being, gender equality and public finance, and international trade and gender. Formerly, she was Senior Scholar and co-Director of the Gender Equality and Economy Program at The Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, and Director of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Governance team at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).During the 1990s, she was a Senior Program Officer at the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, where she managed research networks and competitions on a wide range of economic, governance, and population issues. She has edited and authored books and articles on gender equality, development, and macro economics. Her most recent books are The Feminist Economics of Trade, co-edited with Diane Elson and Irene Van Staveren (Routledge 2007) and Trading Women's Health and Rights:The Role of Trade Liberalization and Development, co-edited with Elissa Braunstein and AnjuMalhotra (Zed Books 2006). She is the lead author (with Geeta Rao Gupta) of Taking Action:Achieving Gender Equality and Empowering Women (Earthscan Press 2005) and co-author (with Gita Sen) of Development, Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives(Monthly Review Press 1987). Her articles have appeared in World Development, The Journal of International Development, Feminist Economics, Health Policy and Planning, and The Lancet. Dr. Grown is an Associate Editor of Feminist Economics, a member of the External Gender Forum of the Asian Development Bank, and a founding member of the International Working Group on Gender and Macroeconomics (GEM-IWG). From 2001-2004, she served as Senior Associate of Task Force 3 of the UN Millennium Project on gender equality and women's empowerment. She holds a PhD in economics from the New School for Social Research and a BA in Political Science from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Chris Nielsen, USA
Dr. Christine Nielsen, Professor of International Business & Strategy, holds the Yale Gordon Chair of Distinguished Teaching at the Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore. She is a recipient of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents' Faculty Award for teaching. Her interests include international competitiveness, social enterprise development, and cross-cultural management. Nielsen's article "The Global Chess Game…Or Is It Go?" appearing in Thunderbird International Business Review is ranked as one of the top 50 management articles of 2005. Christine is an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis (UUCA), a leading UU congregation of the Women’s Rights Worldwide initiative. She is Co-Chair of the UUCA Buhata Pinay (Do It, Filipina!), a model program in the Philippines, working collaboratively with the NGO’s leaders on Negros Island on behalf of women’s development through initiatives to strengthen education, livelihood opportunities, healthcare and safety, and leadership skills. Nielsen was the Fulbright-SyCip Distinguished Lecturer in the Philippines during 2007, the first woman to receive this Award.

Rev. Meg Riley, USA
Rev. Meg Riley is a graduate of the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. She served three Minnesota congregations as a religious educator before beginning work at the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) headquarters. She is currently director of Advocacy and Witness where she is responsible for working with various offices to provide support for congregational social justice efforts, as well as witness in the name of the Associations more than 1,000 congregations. Previously, Riley was Director of the UUA's Washington Office for Advocacy, the Office of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Concerns, and the Youth Office. She is currently the co-chair of Faith in Public Life, a permanent organization which was founded in 2004 to provide critical organizing and communications resources to strengthen diverse faith movements that share a call to pursuing justice and the common good. She is also Chair of the Gulf Coast Relief Fund Panel.

Rev. Rebecca Sienes, The Philippines
The Rev. Rebecca Quimada-Sienes was the 1st ordained UU woman minister of the UUCP (Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines) and is currently the Coordinator of the UUCP. She graduated from Meadville-Lombard. Quimada-Sienes designed a program called BUHATA PINAY (translated as "Do It, Filipina") to empower UU and non-UU women to address the issue of domestic abuse. BUHATA PINAY is committed to enable and empower women and their families in the following four areas: economic participation within a sustainable environment, education, health and safety and building leadership within the broader communities. In partnership with the UN Global Justice Committee (UNGJC) of the UU Church of Annapolis, Maryland, United States of America, BUHATA PINAY, a joint comprehensive women's development program of the UU women in the Philippines and non-UU women who are neighbors of a UU church was officially organized last month.

Dr. Sharon Welch, USA
Dr. Sharon Welch is the provost of Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago. Until September 2007 she was chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She also served as chair and professor of Women's and Gender Studies, and as adjunct professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. Before joining the faculty at Missouri she was professor of Theology and Religion and Society at Harvard Divinity School for nine years. She earned her M.A. and her Ph.D. in theology from Vanderbilt University. She is a member of the core team for the UUA Congregational Study Action Issue on Peacemaking, and serves as the chair of the U.S. steering committee of Global Action to Prevent War. Welch is the author of After Empire: the Art and Ethos of Enduring Peace; A Feminist Ethic of Risk; Sweet Dreams in America: Making Ethics and Spirituality Work; and Communities of Resistance and Solidarity: A Feminist Theology of Liberation.

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