VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 3/22/13)—American Baptist Women’s Ministries announces that the Rev. Barbara Jim-George of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California, will be honored as the 2013 recipient of the Shine the Light Award.
The Shine the Light Award, established by American Baptist Women’s Ministries, ABCUSA, recognizes a woman or a women’s ministry group that serves as outstanding light-bearers for Christ. The award highlights a specific ministry project or projects that best demonstrate how the individual or group has spread the light of Christ through their congregation, their community, or the world.
Rev. Barbara Jim-George receives this award in recognition of her work in the prevention of human trafficking through a primary prevention faith-based curriculum she developed for teen girls aged 11-16 named the Girls’ Right of Passage Program. The Girls Right of Passage Program empowers and equips pre-teen and teen girls with knowledge, tools, and decision-making skills to evaluate and navigate media and societal messages effectively; it seeks to provide girls with the self-esteem, analytical thinking, and moral compass that will lower their risk of victimization. Passionately addressing the growing pandemic of commercial sexual exploitation of children in Oakland, Rev. Jim-George has worked with a network of community groups, other church ministries, the county district attorney’s office, and representatives of the local policing agency youth services division to identify best practices to prevent teen girls from commercial sexual exploitation; she is also working to develop a relationship with the Oakland Unified School District to form a collaboration for education and awareness-raising about the realities of human trafficking with middle and high school students. Rev. Jim-George returned to school at the age of 60 to pursue her Master of Divinity degree; she is now engaged in doctoral studies focused on the issue of human trafficking.
Rev. Barbara Jim-George will be presented with the 2013 Shine the Light Award at the National Women’s Conference at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix, Arizona, in July 2013.
In 2011, the women of the First Baptist Church in Selma, California, were recognized for work they did on behalf of victims and survivors of sex trafficking through the American Baptist Women’s Ministries-sponsored national mission project, Break the Chains: Slavery in the 21st Century. In 2012, recipients Mrs. Elizabeth Gooden and Mrs. Sybil Jones of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, were recognized for their devoted commitment to the Open Door Fellowship, a ministry to incarcerated and previously incarcerated individuals, as well as the many other ways they serve in ministry.
For more information about the Shine the Light Award, visit the AB Women’s Ministries website at www.abwministries.org, or contact the AB Women’s Ministries office at (610) 768-22288 or info@abwministries.org. Nomination forms for the 2014 award will be available in the fall of 2013.
American Baptist Women’s Ministries is a Christ-centered ministry with a commitment to encourage and empower women and girls to serve God. Additional American Baptist Women’s Ministries resources are available at www.abwministries.org.
American Baptist Churches USA is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with over 5,200 local congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.