Meeting for Sufferings: Exploring diversity and inclusion in Meetings
Edwina Peart, Britain Yearly Meeting's diversity and inclusion coordinator, spoke to Meeting for Sufferings about her work
‘All divisions among people are made by people.’ This comment from an Area Meeting was highlighted by Edwina Peart, inclusion and diversity coordinator for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), when she spoke to her report at Meeting for Sufferings.
In 2017 Yearly Meeting asked Sufferings to ‘look at how we can remove barriers and actively seek wider participation in the full life of our Meetings’. The inclusion and diversity coordinator role was created to help with this consideration.
As part of the process, three questions were sent to Area Meetings in October 2017 (see ‘Exploring diversity’, 20 October 2017).
Edwina Peart told Sufferings about the themes that have emerged so far and shared examples of responses from individuals, Local Meetings and Area Meetings.
She spoke of how Friends ‘don’t know how diverse we are’ and that some responses highlighted diversity in sexual orientation, gender and age range.
However, difficulties surrounding a ‘fear of change’ and the lack of diversity reported in race and class were also raised. Edwina Peart emphasised how some of these issues are ‘deeply entrenched’ structural inequalities in society and that Quakers ‘may not yet have transcended’ these divisions.
The importance of welcome was highlighted in ministry, with one Friend commenting that ‘some of the most unwelcoming times I’ve had have been at Quaker Meetings’.
Another Friend asked about the progress on a definition of diversity, which the written report had identified as being lacking. Edwina Peart hopes to bring a comprehensive definition, which resonates with Meetings to Sufferings, in April 2019.
She also described her plans for the next phase of work, which includes a diversity and inclusion national gathering at Woodbrooke in January 2019.
