Friends offer Christmas witness

From supporting the Amnesty International Write for Rights campaign to sending MPs fairtrade chocolate and a Christmas wish list.

Friends used their Christmas spirit to practise some Quakerly witness and outreach as the year drew to a close.

As Emmeline Storey, from Rugby Meeting, told the Friend: ‘At our all-age Christmas celebration Meeting for Worship, [we] wrote cards to prisoners. This is supporting the Amnesty International Write for Rights campaign – sending messages of support to people around the world who are being unfairly persecuted for their beliefs and actions.’

Meanwhile Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) staff sent MPs fairtrade chocolate and a Christmas wish list, urging them to contribute to the fund compensating for unavoidable climate impacts agreed at COP27.

The initiative was part of the ‘Make Polluters Pay’ coalition, which sent postcards to forty MPs asking for new funding for loss and damage, additional to mitigation and adaptation funds.

Siobhán Haire, deputy recording clerk for BYM, said: ‘The poorest in the world are the worst-affected by a climate crisis they did not create. Rich countries and fossil fuel companies must now contribute to the loss and damage fund agreed at COP27, to compensate these communities and allow them to rebuild.’

Last month BYM also helped peers to raise the issue of loss and damage in a House of Lords debate on overseas development spending.

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