While all the rest of you were hitting the books or having fun over the past two days, I've been plugging away on the World Tour circuit. On Saturday, I spent some time with the Presbyterian Women of Seattle Presbytery, and on Sunday I went to worship at the Kenyan International Community Church in South Seattle. I also met up with CoCo's Sacha Maxim for dinner last night, where she shamelessly attempted to recruit all of her friends at Seattle University for NNPCW. The plan is for her to bring her friend Anna (who showed me some fascinating dance moves that involve groups of people kicking and punching to hard rock music) to the leadership event this summer. I also told Sacha I wanted her to lead a knitting workshop, so I'll let her explain more of that later.

I met with a group of about ten young women at the Kenyan church, all of whom had been in the United States for five years or less. When I asked them how NNPCW and REYWT could partner with them to empower them as women, they came back with a very clear, practical answer-- they need scholarships. Recent immigrants do not always have oodles of cash, and the tuition for international students (which is what they're considered at this point) is higher than tuition for any American student. They wanted to know how we could help them find jobs and money to go to school, so that they can build lives for themselves in this country.

I'm afraid I didn't have very good answers for them-- the Presbyterian Church (USA) offers scholarships for students, but only if you're Presbyterian and if you're a citizen or permanent resident. During our time together, the women talked about forming a women's group in their church to advocate for scholarships. I suggested, for instance, that they talk to the Presbyterian congregation that lets them borrow a building for worship services about donating funds.

What I'm wondering, for all of you out there, is how NNPCW and REYWT can both partner with these women in the process? New immigrant college women are one of the most overlooked groups in NNPCW. How can we provide them tools for empowerment?

A side note before I go about why I love being a woman-- I stayed up until 5 am this morning talking to my cousin about everything under the sun. That's also why I'm going to go take a nap now.

"Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt." --Exodus 23:9

Kelsey

KNITTERS UNITE!!!!!!