During her years ministering in rural Brazil, Sr. Frances Sedlacek experienced a transformative movement that changed her worldview.
“The women in Brazil were like slaves. They had no rights, no say in anything, but they started fighting for equality. They said, ‘We want a voice in our villages and in decisions being made,'” recalled Sedlacek, 75, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration. “I had the experience of watching these women find their voice.”
Inspired by this empowerment, she returned to her hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1998, eager to foster similar change. There, she found two fellow Sisters of St. Francis who shared her vision: Sr. Jeannette Kneifel, who had just written a Ph.D. thesis on energizing women to take action, and Sr. Marilyn Uhing, who had launched a women-centered spiritual organization.
“We were alive with the idea of women helping women to have a voice in their own lives,” Sedlacek said. “We got together and decided to develop a new program.”
The result was Women Partnering, a nonprofit organization that has far surpassed Sedlacek’s expectations. Serving the Colorado Springs area, Women Partnering provides financially vulnerable women with tools and support to achieve economic sustainability and independence. Since its founding in 2001, the organization has helped over 5,400 women and 5,000 children at no cost.
“We’ve had many women go through our programs and completely turn their lives around,” said Sedlacek, now vice president of Women Partnering’s board.
Women have been the driving force behind the nonprofit since its inception. To ensure their efforts were grounded in real experiences, the three sisters initially assembled a research team of five women facing financial difficulties who also “had the wherewithal to speak for themselves,” Sedlacek said.
The sisters worked closely with this group, using their insights to identify unmet needs and brainstorm ways a new organization could address these gaps.
“Even though they were on welfare and struggling to make ends meet, those five women were outstanding,” Sedlacek said. “They were very outspoken.”
In the spirit of giving women a voice, the sisters encouraged this team to present a proposal to the provincial chapter of the Sisters of St. Francis. Their compelling presentation successfully secured a $1 million foundation to create Women Partnering.
“The local women spoke at that meeting in front of our sisters, and they did an outstanding job,” Sedlacek said. “They were so involved in wanting this.”
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