Year Joined MKLM: 1993
Country: Brazil
City: João Pessoa, Paraíba
Focus: Civil & Human Rights
Project(s): Women’s Rights Training
People Served: 25 Facilitators of Women’s Groups; 40 group participants
Project Goal(s): Help strengthen the women’s movement in Paraíba by training women leaders, the majority Afro-Brazilian, to increase the number of women’s groups that focus on health, sexuality, and human rights. |  |
Personal Data
Originally from Battle Creek, MI, Kathy was a social worker in Puerto Rico and a lobbyist at Bread for the Word in Washington, D.C. before becoming an MKLM missioner in 1993. Kathy was serving in mission in Brazil when she met Flavio Rocha da Silva while they were working on a social justice project. They married in 2000 and briefly returned to the United States to live in Berkeley, CA, where they were active in the Holy Spirit Newman Community. Flavio and Kathy returned to Brazil in 2004. Their daughter Maya was born there in 2005. Current Ministry
Kathy’s current ministry is Women’s Rights Training. Often, Brazilian women are subject to sexism and violence. Afro-Brazilian women are also subject to racism. The goal of Kathy’s ministry is to help strengthen the women’s movement in Paraíba by training women leaders, the majority Afro-Brazilian, to increase the number of women’s groups that focus on health, sexuality, and human rights. The project achieves its goals by offering a two-year training course for 25 women leaders. Kathy motivates the course participants to create new women’s groups and she accompanies the course participants through the organization, planning, execution and evaluation stages of the women’s group they establish. Course participants are also scheduled to give a workshop at two major gatherings – the National Feminists Conference in Recife, and Paraíba Social Forum. |
