Aston University in Birmingham will be the venue for this year’s Baptist World Alliance Women’s Leadership Conference on 23 – 26 July 2005, held in conjunction with the Baptist World Congress.

Around 800 are expected to attend the event, around one-third of which are from Africa. The congress, sponsored by the Women’s Department of the Baptist World Alliance, takes place every five years and will run Bible study, focus groups, and cultural celebrations.

The theme of the conference is 'Seeing with new eyes' and promises colourful discussions with a wealth of international speakers. The Sunday events kick off with Ksenija Madga from Croatia, a Langham scholar reading for a PhD at The London School of Theology, will be leading a Bible study on women’s identity.

Dorothy Seleban, an internationally-recognised women’s leader and educator from South Africa, will then deliver a paper on this theme followed by responses from Atola Subong, a journalist and director of a ministry to young women in India, and Thelma Chambers-Young, an African-American pastor.

Monday will see a different agenda, with Amparo Medina of Colombia, a psychologist, professor, and author of Freedom from Violence in the Family, leading a morning Bible study on changing roles within the family.

Lois Mitchell, sociologist and Canadian Baptists’ spokeswoman on public issues in Ottowa, will deliver the paper on this subject, with Jamaican Clover Jarrett, nurse, teacher, and counsellor who co-leads marriage enrichment retreats, giving the response.

Experts and practitioners will then lead ten focus groups looking at particular issues of concern to women, including poverty, injustice, HIV/AIDS, children at risk, trafficking of women, women’s health, and the controversy regarding the role of women in the Scriptures.

The line up of speakers includes:

• Lauran Bethell, based in the Czech Republic, an international consultant to Christian ministries to female victims of sexual and economic exploitation.

• Marion Carson, lecturer in New Testament and pastoral care at International Christian College in Glasgow, Scotland, and Femi Okunlola, faculty member of the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary in Ogbomoso will assess the general that people have about the role of women in the Bible and the way in which they arrive at these assumptions.

• Wanda S. Lee, executive director/treasurer of Woman’s Missionary Union, Auxiliary to Southern Baptist Convention (USA), will explore together with Linda Koromo of Sierra Leone, who has worked for major NGOs, daily injustice suffered by women.

• Romanian dentist, Iren Halasz, and Kaa Simon, a public health nurse working to lower the high maternal death rate in her native Papua New Guinea, will focus on women’s health issues, talking on childbearing, fertility, menopause, and female genital mutilation.

• Former missionary in Nepal for the Baptist Missionary Society who now works for UNAIDS for the Global Coalition for Women and AIDS, Sally Smith, and Harriet Nokuri, Cameroon-born founder and director of a U.S.-based agency that is addressing HIV/AIDS in Africa, will look at feminisation in the HIVS/AIDS epidemic.

• Kihomi Ngwemi of Haiti will show how women are coping with poverty in a very severe and difficult environment.

The focus groups are designed to be highly educational, raising to a higher level of women’s awareness on issues relevant to them: "I expect that some of the most significant learning will take place in the focus groups," said Canadian Dr Audrey Morikawa, soon to complete her five-year term as the Women’s Department president. Dr Morikawa’s successor, as well as that of her teammate, Women’s Department secretary-treasurer Alicia Zorzoli, is to be announced toward the end of the conference.

The line-up to the evenings’ events will also be tailored with international flair, featuring Canadian artist Bev Foster to lead the international prayer team, as well as performances by the 24-voice Shalom Choir from Korea, a praise choir composed from 17 Native American tribes, a dance ensemble from the Republic of Georgia, and the Serenity Praise Liturgical Dancers from America.

Dr Morikawa said, "We hope that this will be a great celebration of unity in the midst of diversity."