Every four years the YWCA has an International Women’s Summit, where they share information and vote. I recently returned from this meeting in Nairobi, where I met many young women. The YWCA has a commitment to 25% of its delegations under 30 years old, and they have recently amended their constitution to require that 50% of voting delegations be under 30! This is not going to be easy for an organization that is old and has many older members.

At the conference there was a special young women’s pre-meeting. Though there was this high commitment to youth participation, I think there still could have been more young women as the speakers and leaders of workshops, as well as more time for young women to meet each other share experiences. Like what often happens, the youth meeting was “over-programmed” – it served as a space for the key note people deliver separate speeches to the youth audience. It is so much work to bring young people together; when we finally get together we need to talk directly!

But the summit overall was an exciting convergence of ecumenical organizations, and it was nice to be in a faith-based majority at a meeting about women’s rights. The theme “Women and HIV” is crucially important – it cuts across many issues facing women, reproductive rights and access to care and information, poverty, sexual violence and discrimination. As we know young women ages 15-24 are the fastest growing population to be infected with the virus. Good for the YWCA for bringing us together on this theme, I hope the faith communities keep addressing it head on.