In the wake of her serving as the Primate’s appointee to the Anglican Communion delegation at the recent United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 61, the Rev. Laura Marie Piotrowicz has been appointed as a Canadian representative to the Ecumenical Women coalition at the United Nations by Archbishop Fred Hiltz, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.
Piotrowicz, rector at St. John’s Anglican Church, Port Dalhousie in St. Catharines, Ont. in the Diocese of Niagara, is an executive member of the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer, where much of her work revolves around issues of gender justice. She is also a member of the board of directors for the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF), the relief and development agency of the Anglican Church of Canada.
A network of church denominations and ecumenical organizations accredited by the UN’s Economic and Social Council, Ecumenical Women seeks to promote gender equality at the UN and to help women of faith, particularly those attending the CSW. The worldwide Anglican Communion is one of 20 member organizations that together constitute Ecumenical Women.
Members of Ecumenical Women each appoint representatives to different working groups. As a representative to Ecumenical Women, Piotrowicz will attend monthly phone meetings and take part in one of four working groups respectively dealing with advocacy, orientation of members at the CSW, worship at the CSW, and communications.
Piotrowicz described her reaction to her appointment as “a combination of incredibly humbled and incredibly excited.”
Appointments to Ecumenical Women are typically open-ended and based on who member organizations choose to continue to represent them.
In a letter to Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, appointing Piotrowicz to UNCSW61, Archbishop Hiltz praised her as an ideal representative and “wonderful communicator.”
The work of Piotrowicz as a parish priest and her involvement in PWRDF, he added, have “allowed her to gain familiarity with the economic conditions and needs of women and girls not only in our province, but also in other parts of the Anglican Communion.”