Raising Up Healthy Women and Girls: An Update

Raising Up Healthy Women and Girls is Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's initiative to change the lives of women, and those everywhere whose lives they touch, by mobilizing various types of bold action around health and wellness. Women's health issues have often received less attention than men's health issues, and women often put others' needs before their own. Women of the ELCA seeks a visible and measurable impact on the collective health of women, and therefore all people, everywhere.

Healthy women help create healthy communities and develop healthy leaders. We will realize our goals throughout the triennium by educating, sharing, motivating, and advocating. Over the last year we have been focused primarily on educating and sharing, and now we are equipped to put some emphasis on advocating as well.

Along the way
The conversations begun along the way have centered around the need to target heart attack and stroke, the numbers 1 and 3 killers of women today. We are helping women take control of their own health by being better informed and asking better questions. We have encouraged women to step into action by getting physical for their health. The whole health initiative stepped off in July 2005 under the hot San Antonio sun with a 4K Run, Walk 'n' Roll event through which more than 260 people raised $28,000 as the foundation to help fund this endeavor. We also have lifted up the biblical regard for health and wholeness in numerous ways.

We continue to raise money toward the initiative with your help: through Run/Walk/Roll events (materials available online soon), t-shirt sales, and your financial gifts. We can, and will, do more together to raise awareness and make possible concrete changes around these important women's health matters as we petition our federal legislators to pass important legislation on women's health (see below). In fall 2006, women had the opportunity to build on our partnership by learning more about taking control of your own health and wholeness, and learning how you can help others in your community do the same, by attending one of the replicable health events in Chicago or Greensboro, N.C. The resources for carrying out your own health event and a Healthy Heart Fair: Stations of the Heart are now available on this site.

A real heart for women
In March 2006, Women of the ELCA's executive board voted unanimously to endorse the HEART (Heart disease, Education, Analysis and Research, and Treatment) for Women Act, a bi-partisan bill introduced on February 14, 2006, in the Senate by Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and in the House of Representatives by Representatives Lois Capps (D-CA) and Barbara Cubin (R-WY). This legislation coincides perfectly with our health initiative and would help countless women and girls now and in the future. Women of the ELCA became the first religious organization to endorse this bill. Send your letter of support or call your legislators today so this bill becomes law.

Your activities
We'd love to be able to share what you are doing to support the health initiative. See what others are doing and then send your update — what you've done and what you plan to do — to us at Women.ELCA@elca.org  Put "health initiative activities" in the subject line of your message. We look forward to hearing from you. And remember to plan your local health event too.