ITEBA Grant

A group of Network and ITEBA staff wrote and submitted a grant to the Presbyterian Women (PCUSA) Birthday Offering in 2003 for funds to allow ITEBA to purchase a physical facility that will, in turn, allow it to apply to the Brazilian government for official university status. The grant was approved. Below is the essential descriptive part of the grant proposal as well as the text from Horizons magazine announcing the grant.

Text of Descriptive Portion of ITEBA grant to Presbyterian Women Birthday Offering - 2004

The Institute for Theological Education of Bahia (ITEBA), in Salvador Brazil, the poorest region of Brazil, prepares the future Christian leadership to be pastors, teachers, chaplains in hospitals, and to work in social service agencies. In order to qualify as a university level theological faculty, ITEBA must be accredited by the Brazilian Ministry of Education in Brasilia. ITEBA is working to meet those requirements but must own physical facilities for office, library, and classrooms. The cost to purchase, remodel, and equip a building adjacent to Colegio Dois de Juiho, which will be the ITEBA university affiliate, is $150,000.

Accreditation from the Ministry of Education is critical to the future of ITEBA. ITEBA students, many of them young, black women, poor, and descended from slaves imported by the millions during the colonial era, will be entitled to federally funded scholarships and other financial assistance only available to students in programs which are accredited by the Ministry of Education. Accreditation and university affiliation will enable ITEBA to achieve financial independence by doubling enrollments without major increases in faculty costs. Currently, financial assistance from the World Council of Churches and the ITEBA Network (a group of mostly Presbyterian churches in the U.S.) has allowed ITEBA to sustain itself. ITEBA students cannot afford a tuition which would provide the financial base to achieve government accreditation.

ITEBA is unique among theological seminaries. It has been ecumenical from its inception, with a Board of Trustees, Board of Directors, Faculty, and students which are Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, and Catholic. The students are from the most disadvantaged area of Northwest Brazil. At ITEBA, poor, black women and men are able to contextualize (affirm) their Afro-Brazilian heritage in their theology and worship. Funding of this proposal will ensure 'that ITEBA has the resources to achieve accreditation. Accreditation will allow ITEBA to continue meeting the demands for Leadership Development for churches, schools, and social service agencies which "plant the Reign of God and God's justice" (Matt. 6:33) in the favelas of Salvador.

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This article originally appeared in the January/February 2004 issue of
Horizons magazine, the magazine for Presbyterian Women in the Presbyterian
Church (USA). To order resources from Horizons or Presbyterian Women, call
1-800-524-2612. The ITEBA Network appreciates the permission of Horizons to reproduce the article.

Birthday Offering 2004

Happy Birthday!

Today may not be your birthday, but in our increasingly diverse society, having a birthday is something we all have in common. Presbyterian Women has a birthday celebration, too. In 1922, Hallie Winsborough-the superintendent of women's work for the Women's Auxiliary of the Presbyterian Church in the United States-saw need at a girls' school in Japan and hoped that women would want to support this great need with financial gifts. For 82 years Presbyterian women have contributed money for worthwhile causes worldwide. Some of these gifts and grants make up the Birthday Offering.

The Birthday Offering is one way Presbyterian Women answers God's call to make a difference in the lives of others. By combining our resources, participants in Presbyterian Women contribute, on average, $1,000,000 each year. This year, the Creative Ministries Offering Committee received applications from 51 worthy projects and had to narrow that list to no more than five recipients. The selection process, done by consensus, involved much prayer, discussion and soul searching.

The Creative Ministries Offering Committee is composed of nine members-six from the Churchwide Coordinating Team of Presbyterian Women, including the financial secretary, and three from the General Assembly Council. Grant recipients must meet the criteria established by PW and must be accompanied by a written endorsement of a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) synod or presbytery.

Presbyterian Women asks you to pray for these five exciting, powerful and life-changing projects, chosen to receive the 2004 Birthday Offering.

Camp Luminaria
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe, a hub of Spanish and Native American cultures, has a history of poverty and one of the highest drop out rates for middle school students in the United States. One of the biggest gaps in services for this area is the lack of day/evening reporting programs for youth who are nonviolent, first offenders and whose offenses do not call for incarceration, but require the youth to report to someone on a regular basis.

Camp Luminaria will establish such a program-an alternative to roaming the streets for suspended and expelled middle and high school students. Their goal is to provide a safe, structured learning and counseling environment that facilitates a student's return to regular school classes. Funding of this faith based start-up program will provide a wide array of services to youth ages 11-15 and their families. They will receive help in addressing such issues as behavior, substance abuse, school suspension or exclusion, and life skill difficulties. Special emphasis will be placed on building respect among female youth, and providing the recognition and reliability that nurture both the child and the child's family as a team.

A luminaria is a traditional Mexican Christmas lantern-usually a candle set in sand inside a paper bag-used to recall the route traveled by Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem. For the program, the luminaria lights the way to a safe haven for troubled youth and their families in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Institute for Theological Education of Bahia (ITEBA)
Salvador, Brazil
Since 1986, The Institute for Theological Education of Bahia (ITBEA) has worked ecumenically to develop leaders for churches, schools and social service agencies in Salvador, Brazil. Accreditation as a university level theological seminary by the Brazilian Ministry of Education is critical to this institution's future, enabling students-many of whom are poor, young women-to receive federally funded scholarships. Another benefit of accreditation would be an increase in enrollment, allowing the seminary to become financially independent.

To meet accreditation requirements, ITEBA must own the physical facilities for their offices, library and classrooms. Funds received from the Birthday Offering will allow ITEBA to purchase, remodel and equip a building, in their effort to meet these and other accreditation requirements.

Mobile Health Screening
Louisville, Kentucky
Reaffirming the challenge to all Presbyterians to be "a community of health and healing at every level and at every location,"* the National Health Ministries Office is initiating a project that promotes congregational partnerships and the sharing of resources among those who are able to develop parish nursing ministries.

To this end, a fully equipped medical van will provide preventive and early detection health screening to women, children and persons that live in medically underserved communities in the presbyteries of Mid-Kentucky and Transylvania. The Mobile Health Van will also be utilized by National Health Ministries for health screenings at national churchwide events and promoted as a model for Presbyterians who wish to develop their own mobile health screening program.

Children's Cross Connection USA
Atlanta, Georgia
In response to God's love, Children's Cross Connection USA brings children from around the world to the United States for medical treatment not available to them in their own countries.

Due to a tremendous volunteer network of doctors, hospitals and host families, the average cost to restore a child's health is only $2,000. Most of these children have been shunned by their community because of their physical condition, often the result of birth defects or cancer. With medical treatment, not only is a child's health restored, but her/his self-image is improved, along with the chance for a better life.

Children's Cross Connection USA focuses on the whole person, also providing scholarships for additional education, housing for children who are homeless and equipment and training so that a child's parent can become self-sufficient or earn a better living.

Resource Center, Presbyterian Senior Services (PSS) Grandparent Family Apartments
Bronx, New York
In 1995, Presbyterian Senior Services (PSS) received a Creative Ministries grant to help establish a program that provided services for five minority low-income older adults raising their grandchildren. Poverty, substance abuse, divorce, violence and AIDS contribute to the rapid increase in the number of families without parents. Today the number of families served by PSS has grown to 25.

This Birthday Offering grant will support a new thrust to this program-the construction of a 50-unit Presbyterian Senior Services Grandparents Family Apartment Building. The center will house a state-of-the-art resource center that will enable PSS to serve the residents and the surrounding community.

*From "Life Abundant: Values, Choices and Health Care-The Responsibility and Role of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)," adopted by the 200th General Assembly of PC(USA), 1998.

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