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Women’s leadership program launched

Carol Zimmerman | Catholic News Service

Young adult Catholic women attend the 2016 GIVEN Leadership Forum in Washington. The forum set in motion a newly formed organization called the GIVEN Institute to train young Catholic women leaders. COURTESY GIVEN | CNS

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WASHINGTON — A Catholic women’s leadership organization, the
GIVEN Institute, which aims to encourage and train young women in leadership
roles in the church and society, officially launched Sept. 12.

“There are plenty of leadership programs in the private
sector; there is no reason we can’t do it with a faith component,” said the
organization’s founder, Elise Italiano, former communications director for the
Diocese of Arlington.

Italiano, who also writes for the Catholic News Service column
“In Light of Faith,” noted that there also are plenty of innovative
programs in the church but leadership development for women is especially
needed, particularly in the current moment in the church.

The organization is not a brand new idea but something that grew
out of a 2016 leadership conference sponsored by the Council of Major Superiors
of Women Religious called the GIVEN Catholic Young Women’s Leadership Forum.

That program brought together 300 young women for a weeklong
conference at The Catholic University of America in Washington and featured
U.S. Catholic women leaders including Carolyn Woo, former president and CEO of
Catholic Relief Services; Sister Norma Pimentel, a member of the Missionaries
of Jesus, who is executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley
in Texas; Helen Alvare, professor of law at the Antonin Scalia Law School at
George Mason University in Arlington; and Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, superior
general of the Sisters of Life.

Mother Agnes Mary said in a statement that the initial event was “conceived
in the hearts of women religious and remains a significant response on the part
of the church to encourage, inspire and mentor young women at a crucial moment
in their lives. We want each of them to know they are loved, noticed and necessary.”

And that’s just what the new initiative aims to continue.

It plans to sponsor a national conference every two to three
years modeled after the 2016 gathering and offer a track-based leadership
program and individual mentoring programs matching young women with established
Catholic women professionals from a variety of fields and ministries.

Michelle Nunez, a 24-year-old from Houston who attended the 2016
forum, said it changed her life, setting her on the path of her current work.
She’s an administrative assistant to Sister Norma, a speaker who inspired her
at that event.

The forum’s participants were encouraged to develop action plans
for how they would specifically follow their vocational calling and Nunez, for
her part, put her plan into action almost immediately. She volunteered at the
Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, run by Catholic Charities of the
Rio Grande Valley. Nunez mainly worked with Sister Norma, the agency’s
executive director.

After volunteering for four months, Nunez took a break to get her
master’s degree in social work at Catholic University last year and then
returned to the respite center and Catholic Charities, a place she doesn’t see
herself leaving anytime soon.

“This place stole my heart, ” she said, adding that she
“never experienced the Gospel in such a real way” than she has there.

Nunez credits the 2016 forum for not only getting her on this
path but helping her understand and develop her vocation as a laywoman.

She said she is excited about the GIVEN Institute because she
thinks it can help so many Catholic women “to rediscover our
identity” and “understand we have unique gifts and talents to offer
the church.”

She likes the mentoring aspect of the new organization because in
her own experience, although Sister Norma wasn’t her “official
mentor,” she said she learned so much from her.

“She showed me what holiness is about and showed me how to
give of myself,” Nunez said, adding that Sister Norma’s leadership,
courage, perseverance and trust in God has been “an inspiring motivation
that has kept me going to keep pursuing and keep being present to God’s will in
my life.”

Although each person’s experience will be different, Nunez’s
seems to highlight what the new organization hopes to accomplish.

As Italiano said in a statement announcing the group’s formation:
“We want to help young women with a heart for mission and an aptitude for
leadership to better understand their gifts and find opportunities to put them
in the service of the Gospel.”

Find out more

More information can be found on the organization’s
website giveninstitute.com.

 

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