Penn Friends in the park

Quaker children visit Gandhi statue during Yearly Meeting

The Penn Friends (aged five to nine) sat on the steps of Gandhi’s statue in Tavistock Square on a sunny Sunday morning and heard stories of what he had done.

To cries of ‘yuk!’ and ‘blegh!’, one story began with licking a tiny pinch of salt from the palms of their hands. Chris Nickolay told them of how Gandhi had wanted to go to the sea and collect salt for himself. When forbidden to do so he took to the road and walked to the seashore to collect the salt anyway – so began the Salt March.

Hundreds of miles later and he had been joined by thousands of people. The children listened and then formed arm-link chains as Chris showed them how these people had passively resisted the soldiers that came to stop them.

As the story-telling came to a close, a candle was lit and all Penn Friends were given ‘Satyagraha’ stickers – proud to be people who keep the truth and don’t do harm.

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