What You Can Do
This section of the website is devoted to teens. The focus is to connect and reflect the needs of young Black UU girls 13 to 17 years old (high school age). We are stating our intentions, and standing in the gap until the right folks emerge.
If you are looking for a place to express yourself, explore your creativity, learn leadership and nurture community building, we want to hear from you. Please visit our Call and Guidelines for Submissions page to contact us. During this time, we invite you to send in some ideas on topics such as exciting reads, inspiring travels, current events and whatever interests you as a Unitarian Universalist. We are open to all kinds of suggestions and we will get back to you as soon as we hear from you. Thank you!
Standing in the Gap*
I was interested in what Black UU women are currently doing. However, I had a realization. It hit me like a thunderbolt, “Where is the information on Black UU girls?” Where and how are UU girls represented in the narrative when we tell the story of UU women? Are girls even included? By the time the idea for a website was conceived I was intentionally including “girls.”
Presently, we at Sister Souurce, Inc. – the non-profit organization that serves as the umbrella for all our programs – are standing in the gap. We hope the youth who are already doing amazing things around the country will step forward and identify themselves. We hope you believe what you do is so important, others should want to know about it through this website. We hope you are so passionate about sharing the good news of your faith community and how empowering it is to be a youth in your congregation or fellowship or church, etc. that you will want to share your good news.
If we were not clear about prioritizing self-care prior to the pandemic, its existence has made it supremely clear that we must take care of ourselves if we want to continue our work. However, if you find yourself at this point in your life interested in being part of this leadership, we extend an offer to you, to be part of this team.
Until wise young girls and youth leaders emerge to offer direction and guidance for the “teen girls” section of the website we will stand in the gap.
Warmest Regards, Rev. Qiyamah
*Standing in the Gap – I once attended a meeting where we were going around introducing ourselves. One individual stood up, stated her name, her organizational affiliation and the following, “I am standing in the gap for our Executive Director, so and so. She could not be here and so I am standing in the gap.” She spoke with such pride and conviction. I had never heard the phrase, “standing in the gap,” but many years later I remember her words and I have learned to assume leadership where someone’s absence would have created a gap.