Helping women on the margins

The newsletter of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, here, has an interesting article about helping women in Washington and Oregon:

Twelve years ago, a coalition of Catholic religious communities with an impressive record of seeking social justice in the northwestern United States turned its attention to women on the margins of society, particularly Latina immigrants. Adjusting the traditional organizing model, the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center (IPJC) helped low-income women form Women’s Justice Circles to identify and address the conditions that keep them poor, unstable, and marginalized.  

More than four thousand women in four dioceses in Washington and Oregon have now participated in the grassroots empowerment process that brings formerly excluded women into the mainstream effort to promote change for the common good. The groups are led by low-income or immigrant women and those living in crisis or otherwise on the edges of society. They work in partnership with economically stable women from local faith communities to devise concrete steps out of poverty.