Global Solidarity
The Grail is working in 21 countries worldwide. We have centers or groups in Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, Uganda, and the USA. Additionally, we have a center in Brussels.
Grail members work together via international networks including:
- Migration and Refugees Network
- Trade and Global Justice Network,
- Spirituality Network,
- Earth Network, and
- Grail Link to the United Nations Network
The International Grail has been a registered non-governmental organization (NGO) at the United Nations since 1953 and has participated for many years at the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and at the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. We are also a member organization of The Working Group on Girls.
In the US many of our NY region members are active members of the Grail Link to the UN Network, attending sessions and conferences and then sharing the information outward.
UN CSW
Each March, The Grail International brings together about 20 young women from around the work to take part in a 3 week program centered on the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The co-hort stays at the US Grail Center in the Bronx, organizes two sessions for the public and define how they plan to use their experience to effect social transformation at home.
UNPFII
The Grail Link to the UN network is more than the CSW as Grail members participate in the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) as well. This summer The Grail sponsored the 23rd Annual World Peace and Prayer Day and looks forward to taking part in this event in 2020.
The theme for the 18th session of UNPFII was Tradition Knowledge: Generation, Transmission and Protection with a focus on 2019 being the UN International Year of Indigenous Languages. The Grail/UFER cosponsored a Panel event which was organized and moderated by Abida Jamal (Grail, Moçambique) and Maya Gallardo (Grail, Mexico). The theme was entitled: Our Elders have taught us: Translating tradition and culture into a sustainable economy for future generations. We were fortunate to have as panelists Veronica Guajan, Shirlei Aparecida da Silva and Anna-Maria Ahlén.
The Sofia Fund of Tanzania
Just outside the gate to the Grail center at Kisekibaha, Tanzania is Chekechea. It is the home to Feliciana, a young Grail member and the 15 young Maasai girls who call her mama. Over the past 10 years The Grail Tanzania has gradually brought these girls to live here at the request of their birth mothers. These women know that the only way for their daughters to escape female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriage is to get an education.
How Can I Help? You generous gifts enable The Grail Tanzania to maintain this home and to provide for the formal education of these girls.
St. Teresa of Avila School of Tanzania
The Grail Tanzania started St. Teresa of Avila high school in the Mwanga District in 2007 as a way to help young women perform well in order to enable them to attend college after finishing.
“The only way we can overcome poverty in our region is education. We want to help women of every faith to get out of their own cocoon and be themselves: take courage to build up the Nation or society for the benefit of all.”
How Can I Help? You generous gifts enable The Grail Tanzania to maintain this school and to provide for the continued formal education of these girls.
Anne Hope Legacy Fund
Named for beloved Grail member Anne Hope, this fund sponsors women through Training for Transformation courses where women who engage with deprived and marginalised communities gain skills and tools to question and struggle against socio-economic and political injustices.
Training for Transformation (TfT) is a course for those concerned with the process of transforming societies. Its aim is to create a new level of critically conscious leaders in development education whose theory is grounded in practice. The training is based on the 4 manuals ‘Training for Transformation’ written by Anne Hope and Sally Timmel. The books combine and simplify Paulo Freire’s theory of adult education with other critical thinkers.
Since 2002 the TfT courses trained more than 600 development workers from more than 140 organisations of 40 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, South and North America. Training for Transformation is a programme of The Grail Centre Trust, a Non-Profit Organisation based in Kleinmond, Western Cape, South Africa.
How Can I Help? Your generous gift will enable additional women to take part in TfT and build the skills to create real and lasting social transformation at all levels of community.
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The Grail in the US is a movement where all members are encouraged to advance our shared vision in the manner that best befits their interests, abilities and the needs of their community. We are individual threads that together weave a tapestry.