As a child growing up in small-town South Georgia, Easter Sunday was a very special day — not because we went to church, because my family went to church every Sunday…and Wednesday night for prayer meetings, too. But on Easter Sunday, I went to church in what we called in the South, "my Sunday best!” A new dress, usually finished up on mother’s Singer sewing machine the night before and sometimes copied from one of the Vogue patterns she ordered from the Sears catalog, along with the yellow, pink or blue flowered fabric that was used to make the dress, the hat (yes, a hat was the most essential part of any Easter Sunday outfit), and even to cover my old shoes. Head to toe, I could have been mistaken for one of the Easter eggs we had dyed the night before to place all over the church lawn for the Easter egg hunt that was the reward for sitting still for the two hours of sermons and singing.

One Easter Sunday when I was 13, being moved by the call to approach the altar and make a commitment to service, I committed to becoming a missionary to “heal the sick, feed the hungry, house the homeless, and care for the suffering of all others.” I remember feeling on that Easter Sunday entirely persuaded that I could and would do all that…and more! 

This Easter memory returned to me this weekend as I contemplated the enormous sufferings all around us and reflected on how well I was living up to that 13-year-old's commitment to being a person of service to others. Clearly, for me, the path was not as a missionary, but as a woman leader, someone with this platform and others to advocate for change, but am I doing enough?

That’s a question front and center for me and the global women leaders convening later this week at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. Are we doing enough to confront the global challenges that sometimes feel insurmountable? Are we doing enough to address the intersectional crises of climate, food shortages, and access to necessary healthcare? Can we forge the kinds of alliances, collaborations, and connections necessary for ideas to become actions; can we sustain the hope that is necessary to activate and lead others? We can and we must!

Later this week, 22 women leaders (fewer this year due to coronavirus protocols) will be coming together as a Connected Women Leaders cohort, representing different geographies and generations, to better understand what is required of us — individually and collectively — to renew our commitments we must take up to lead for solutions; to raise the vibrations of hope that ignite the necessary actions, to be entirely unstoppable!

Such was our purpose from the beginning when Ronda Carnegie, Hafsat Abiola and I started Connected Women Leaders (CWL) to share learning, experiences, and collectively put forward solutions we could and would lead to be the bridge between change makers and the changes we want to see and be in the world.

In 2017 and 2019, we brought together a diverse range of women leaders from around the world for forums on some of the world’s most urgent threats: climate justice, food security, global health, economic inequities. And, with a gender and racial lens, we worked together to shape just, equitable and sustainable solutions.

In 2020, we pivoted to gather virtually in a time when connecting in person wasn't possible. These virtual educational summits and the creation of a CWL website, in partnership with the UN Foundation's Nest Initiative, further delivered on our vision of becoming a warm, trusting, and quickly activated community of leaders.

In this week's convening, we will continue to build upon the collective work of CWL members to shape more just and sustainable solutions in our focus areas of food, climate and global health, and adding to our work together, a commitment to also resource, recruit, and elevate the next generation of women leaders. Yes, it is with a kind of missionary zeal and fervor that we convene at this time of escalating violence and deepening fears.

But if not us…each of us here and each of you reading this…WHO?
And if not now, WHEN? 

There has never been a greater need for a commitment to serve others, to use our power and privilege as leaders to connect, collaborate, and lead for change. I'll report back on our plans to rise to the challenges. 

Onward!

- Pat