Interview with Sr Angela Reed RSM Outgoing Head of Mercy Global Action

Interview with Sr Angela Reed RSM, Outgoing Head of Mercy Global Action (MGA)

Brenda Drumm, Head of Communications with Mercy International Association (MIA), sat down with Sr Angela Reed RSM, just as she announced that she would be concluding her time as Head of Mercy Global Action – the justice arm of MIA.

Brenda: I know that you are in reflective mode now as you prepare to conclude this chapter of your ministry as Head of Mercy Global Action, but might you share a little bit about your Life and Ministry?

Angela: I began ministry actually in Education - primary education in Melbourne, Australia very much within in an inner-city context so therefore lots of different cultures particularly Asian cultures where I was based.

Then I moved into studying Theology and while I was studying Theology I also lived and worked in a women’s refuge for homeless women and that led me into working specifically with women (and children) who were survivors of domestic violence. I went on to spend seven years running a women and children’s safe house in Melbourne, Australia.

Then I went and studied social work and after that I got involved with the whole issue of Human Trafficking. I had an incredible opportunity to undertake what’s called The Vincent Fairfax Fellowship in Ethics and Leadership and myself and 13 other Australians had the opportunity to be part of that. That took me to the Philippines, and it was during that time that I began to really understand or get some concept of Human Trafficking both within the refuge movement and my time in the Philippines and so then I went off and studied. I did my PhD in the experience of trafficking for survivors in the Philippines and that led me to take my work to the United Nations as an intern in 2015, and I began ministering there and as things unfolded, I began to become more involved in that work.

Brenda: Before all of that there was your vocation into religious life. Can you talk to me about when you first realised you wanted to be a Religious Sister?

Angela: Well, I was very involved, and the family was very involved in parish all of my childhood.  I was educated by the Presentation Sisters actually and then at a young age (14) my mum died very suddenly and that was quite traumatic for us as a family. There were seven kids, and Dad was only 50 – Mum was 47.

And things began to fall into perspective – the big questions of life come to you. I met a Mercy Sister along the way, and I figured if this is what Mercy is then I wanted to be part of it. So, I got to know the Mercy Community a little bit more and my experience of the parish life just kind of led me there and I said to myself – well I will give it a go and 35 years later here I am!

Brenda: You touched on how your journey with MGA began and you mentioned an internship. What was it in that internship that led you on to take on the role as Head of Mercy Global Action?

Angela: Well, I sort of fell into it in a way. I was pursuing a lot of the Human Trafficking work – working with other NGOs like The Good Shepherds, and Sister Winifred Doherty. I was also working with the Loreto Community and the Institute of Blessed Virgin Mary and started just to get to know other people and see that there was a way to pave forward in this Global Action Office.

I was asked to take on the Interim role which I did and by the time the role was advertised I figured I might as well apply for it and so I did and it has been a journey ever since – it has been a journey every day in the Mercy Global Action office.

Brenda: I had hoped to get an interview with you long before this so there is a poignancy for me in that this is your exit interview from MGA. But how are you feeling Angela as you move on from your time with us?

Angela: I feel as if it’s time - it’s time for me.  I have been absolutely privileged to hold this role and to have met so many good people doing such amazing work - both on the ground at the grassroots level but also at the Advocacy level.

I have had some opportunities to really engage with people who are really making an effort to change systems, and I’ve learned so much about different countries, different cultural ways of being, and it’s been quite an amazing journey.  

Brenda: There will be a lot of people reading this interview who know Mercy Global Action very well but also people who don’t know it well. Will you talk to be about the jigsaw pieces that make up Mercy Global Action?

Angela: Of course! Mercy Global Action is the Justice arm of Mercy International Association (MIA) and of course MIA came together because we believed as the Mercy World that we could make a bigger impact and that has been one of the gifts.  We have been able to engage with people from all across the Mercy World, whether it be Sisters, whether it be people who are partners in ministry, Mercy Associates, it’s just been an amazing contribution. Of course, that mission is rooted in the mission of Catherine McAuley which is God’s Mission.

It has been very much a ministry, and the MGA Office has been positioned in the last six years or so within the United Nations system.  We have had consultative status – the Sisters of Mercy have had consultative status with the United Nations for over 25 years, and we have had representation there for that amount of time. In the last five or so years we have moved all the global justice work to our office in New York - so we strategically decided to put ourselves there.

Basically, what we try to do is connect with the Mercy World from the grassroots to the global reality to raise awareness on issues of justice, to built capacity in different ways and to advocate.

MGA has those really core components and, coupled with that is the research, the human rights analysis, the theological reflection, along with all the networking, co-ordination, animation and communication.

Brenda: There is a very unique approach to what we call Mercy Advocacy – will you speak to that?

Angela: Sure. Well, there have been so many different ways of approaching advocacy throughout the years and in 2015 Sr Áine O’Connor and myself really decided to work on a model – or adapt a model to look at how we could represent Mercy Advocacy for ourselves but also for the Mercy World.

We know that Mercy had been deeply rooted in the experience of earth and people. So, if you think of our Advocacy approach as a triangle and at the bottom of the triangle is the larger area which is the experience of earth and people and then there’s that critical step after knowing the experience of earth and people about looking at who we are, where do we stand, what is our position?

It might be that you stand in a different place than I do. I might stand in a wealthier country than you or I might have had the opportunity for greater education. There are many ways that we can reflect on our own lives and even our family story.

And then our model looks at different tools for advocacy. So, there is not just one way of entering a problem or looking at an issue or advocating - there are a number of tools. One of which is a systems approach and then of course Human Rights analysis fits very comfortably with Mercy.

Theological reflection is a huge part of the faith-based groups working in the advocacy space but in particular in Mercy. We have had a tradition of looking at the Theological– how do we see this from a theological perspective?  We have had the contribution of great Mercy theologians along with lots of other contributors across the world.

And then we look at who is the advocacy for. We don’t advocate for people but rather with people. There is a saying that we often have: Nothing about us, without us. That has been a huge part of my role in heading up the MGA office – I have really tried to involve people at the grassroots and to look at who is with us – what coalitions etc. We can’t work alone and that has been a great part of the work that we have done at Mercy Global Action.

And then all of the above finally leads to actions such as lobbying, letter-writing, creating publications, writing statements etc

At the very top of the pyramid, you can see that from the experience we can actually go through certain steps that lead us to advocacy that is informed, that has undertaken critical questions and is reflective.

Brenda: There is so much need in the world. How does MGA decide what are the thematic areas year to year or decade to decade and what are the over-arching themes that are always on for you?

Angela: That’s a great question – thanks.

In 2016, a year after I went to the UN, the Mercy World undertook what was called MIRP - Mercy International reflection Process and this was in tandem with the Year of Mercy as proclaimed by Pope Francis. That process involved discussion and reflection and really yearning for what we wanted to name throughout the Mercy World as our focus. And over that twelve-month process what evolved from the MIRP process were two overarching themes: The Degradation of Earth and the Displacement of People. And under those themes were other lists.

Under Degradation of Earth, we have water, climate justice, pollution, and garbage disposal.

And under the Displacement of People, we have: Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Human Trafficking and Homelessness.

There were very many issues and so as an office at MGA we needed to look at that mandate and say how do we bite off this huge task?

And so, what we did was we recognised that there is an intersectionality in most issues. So, when you are talking about homelessness you are often talking about people who have been displaced. When you are talking about the Degradation of Earth and Climate Justice you are also talking about displacement, human trafficking and economic poverty and so many other issues.

We decided or rather the Board of MIA decided that it would be good to take an approach where we focus on three specific issues but with an intersectional approach so that we could create some expertise in the area.

And one of those areas is water. There has been - ever since I have known about the office - the issue of water has been on the agenda. You won’t be surprised to know that water is one of the major issues on the UN agenda and so that led us to do lots of different work in coalitions particularly with the UN NGO Mining Working Group but then to create our own Mercy Water Justice Coalition. I am really excited about what potential that will have over the next couple of years. We have made a commitment – the Mercy World has made a commitment to the UN that we will engage in a water action agenda. There is so much work to be done in relation to water across the Mercy World and across the World altogether.

Brenda: One of the really inspiring projects that is part of Mercy Global Action is the MELF Programme – talk a little about that?

Angela: The MELF Programme – the Mercy Global Action Emerging Leaders Fellowship – was created really to respond to a need. We were having women who were post university – just finishing university courses mostly who were coming and undertaking internships and expressing a great desire to be involved.

The interns were saying that it was a life-changing experience, that it was transformative and so drawing on the experience of those interns, we created a programme that incorporated women from all over the Mercy World.

Looking into the future we realised that there are not going to be Sisters in the same numbers that there have been for many years. But as we look to the next couple of years its Mercy Sisters and Associates working together.

We all need formation. The MELF Programme is really a formation programme in leadership and justice. Women come to the programme to experience transformation at their own level of self and have a conscious connection with their own dignity.

As we become very aware of the place of community and the experience of the Mercy World with those around us and then globally to understand the context of Mercy within the global context and so that whole notion of a conscious connection to the dignity and mercy throughout our world.

And so, the programme was born in 2019, and we were very fortunate to have a woman of mercy who believed in our leadership and advocacy formation for women across all walks of life, women of all ages, women at different stages, vowed and non-vowed. She supported this Fellowship, and we are now starting our fifth cohort of women so by the end of this cohort there will be approximately 50 women who have undertaken this Fellowship.

Brenda: Part of the MELF Fellowship is the participation in Three Immersion experiences, and I know we recently had Cohort Four with us in Dublin. Will you speak to how all of that process is managed?

Angela: Well, I mean it’s quite an extensive application process so those who apply really, they have to reflect themselves on their own life journey. We talk about you know, we are asking people who we believe can have influence into the future. And so, the women who come and apply for the MELF Programme are usually leaders already. We call it the MGA Emerging Leaders Fellowship not because they are not already leaders but because we continue to evolve as leaders and this is specifically focusing on the justice component of leadership. The women come with their own leadership journey, and they have different ways of engaging.

Yes there are the three international immersions which are critical to the process beginning in Cambodia with Sr Denise Coghlan is Siam Reap, being immersed in the ministry of those who have experienced maiming from land mines but also the advocacy that community has done in relation to land mines so really it’s a great example of marrying both the local and the global.

And then they go to New York to the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN and have the experience of being surrounded by women from all walks of life across all nations sharing their hopes and dreams, their disappointments. It’s a 10-day immersion in that UN space. Then they come finally to Dublin to Catherine’s House where they get to be immersed completely in the Spiritualty of Mercy and they get to be present in the original Mercy classroom here in the International Room.

The International immersions are part of the programme. They also have to undertake a research project of which they focus on the Degradation of Earth and Displacement of People. There are also an online programme and monthly webinars.

Each person is assigned a mentor - mentoring has become a very significant role within the programme. It was really interesting, in our very first graduation ceremony we were very lucky to have former President of Ireland Mary Robinson give the keynote address. She commented at the time that there were so few programmes for women and women’s leadership and how important the role of mentoring is. She congratulated MGA on taking this step in providing opportunities for women to undertake leadership and justice training and so on.

Brenda:  Angela, as you come to the end of your time with MGA, what are your reflections on the last 10 years or what are the things that will stay with you as you move on?

Angela: I supposed the time has never been stagnant. The role of justice never goes away. The need for justice and mercy in our world never goes away.

One lesson is that it is very hard to really quantify your work – to measure the impact of your work. You need to be people of hope and that is what we are as mercy – we are people of hope. I often think of the quote from Jeremiah: My plans for you are for a future of hope not disaster. That was something I very much held onto during my time of leadership there.

Some of the really amazing opportunities I had was to work with men and women from all across the Mercy World through Taskforces and one significant task force we had was during Covid. We never anticipated Covid happening and so we had a taskforce on Covid 19, and we met regularly across the Mercy World. I relocated back to Australia for a time, and we were connecting in with people from all over the Mercy World and we created a publication in which we celebrated what we called a Pandemic of Kindness in the Mercy World.

We were able to also identify across the Mercy World where the key areas of vulnerability were for people. We were able to name elderly people as particularly vulnerable. We were able to name gender violence which became very prominent, loneliness etc. We were able to celebrate the role of our essential workers in Mercy, and it was a very moving experience to be part of that Taskforce and then to be able to share the research together.

We also had a taskforce on Migration, and we were able to create after that a publication on the way the Mercy World responds to the needs of migrants and refugees in our world and that was a great learning for me.

I have had the opportunity to attend the Conference of Parties (COP) in Egypt and that was an extraordinary experience where we had a Mercy delegation. We had a Sister of Mercy from Argentina and a Sister of Mercy from Kenya, and myself and Cecilie Kern the Global Policy and Research Advocate for MGA. We were all at that COP and it was a big responsibility to go and represent the Mercy World and put forth the important issues of economic justice and environmental justice.

There have been other taskforces that have been very moving.

The MELF Programme itself has been an extraordinary opportunity to work with women of all ages and stages.

Linking in with other like-minded organisations whether they be faith-based or not, NGOs across the world and to really experience a sense of solidarity.

I suppose when I first went to the UN, I thought everybody would be focused on Human Rights but then I began to see that not all global policy incorporates Human Rights and so I found that difficult and yet at the same time, I could see how the Gospel and Human Rights really were interwoven and significant. One of my religious friends referred to the UN as ‘space of prayer and a space like a Cathedral whereby we could have influence and presence’ and so I would continue to say that the role of Mercy in particular at a place like the UN but across the Mercy World is really significant.

Brenda: What’s next for you? That’s a lot to leave behind you. I know you don’t leave it fully behind you as you will always have justice central in your heart – but what’s next for you Angela in practical terms?

Angela: I have always said that you can’t really separate Mercy and Justice. To me you know my first experience of Mercy was justice and so I think wherever I go, wherever Mercy is, justice will be present.

I am not sure what the future holds but I know that since the beginning of my life in Mercy, things have always unfolded in a way that I didn’t expect and that has always been an extraordinary gift.

I depart knowing and trusting in the faithfulness of the Mercy Community and in God who has continued to be present and active in my life.

Brenda: Thanks, Angela, for chatting to us. As you leave Mercy Global Action, you take our love, our prayers and our blessings with you.