‘To work as a global community you need worldwide representation.’ Photo: courtesy of FWCC.
‘The series was created by young Quakers from across the world, for young Quakers across the world.’
Unable to meet in person, young Friends across the world have been meeting online to consider climate justice. FWCC’s Faith Biddle reports
Early on in lockdown a young Friend approached Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) to ask if we could support them in building a community of young climate-conscious Quakers online. This was brilliant timing as back in February FWCC had held an online conference to bring Friends together to explore how Quakers felt God was calling them to build a more sustainable future. The conference demonstrated that Quakers are still passionate about climate action. One of the specific ideas that came up was the need to pool our global energy into supporting young Friends worldwide in their climate action work. After all, it is the young members of our global community who will be bearing much of the brunt of the impacts of climate change.
Initially this support for young Friends was going to come through offering Meeting houses as a space to gather. At the time, many of them were involved in organising school strikes for the climate. But when the pandemic struck it quickly became apparent that using physical spaces would not be possible. Nevertheless, the pressing need to support climate work remained. So when that young Friend approached FWCC to ask if there was a network of young Friends passionate about climate action, we realised it was our role to help.
So it was that during September and October, young Quakers from across the four FWCC sections gathered online to explore climate action, peace and justice. The aims for the series were threefold:
to build a network of young Quakers around the world, and across Quaker branches, who are engaged in climate action, peace and justice
to allow young Quakers to share their stories, experiences, and thoughts
to create a reflective statement from each of the five workshops that build on each other. The fifth, final statement would provide an overview from the workshops, give outline plans for how to stay together as a young Quaker global community, and express their hopes for the whole global Quaker community.
In each of the ninety-minute workshops, young Friends shared their stories to explore how climate action, peace and justice relate to Quaker testimonies of truth, peace, equality, simplicity and community.
This was a challenging task. That’s partly because the series was created by young Quakers from across the world, for young Quakers across the world. Not only did the workshop title have to speak to Friends across the branches (to both evangelical and liberal Friends, for example), the sessions also had to be structured in a way that spoke to programmed and unprogrammed Friends. This is because FWCC works with Friends all around the world and not all Friends have the same way of expressing our faith. The last, and possibly the biggest, challenge was to find ways to explore climate action with Friends around the world, when our lived experiences mean we understand climate action very differently.
Next came the process of putting together a global planning group via Zoom. This wasn’t easy – building connections is hard, especially via a screen and unreliable internet connections, but we found willing representatives from each of the four FWCC sections. The shared faith, and passion to work together, were tangible.
The planning committee was keen to build the network through hearing stories from Friends like them, which in turn they hoped would inspire other Friends like them. This part of the series was a definite success. We heard from Friends like Clara (from Section of the Americas) who spoke passionately about lobbying and climate action. Clara gave the example of how her family practices no-electricity Tuesdays. While she is under no illusion that this will stop climate change, it did teach her how to live within her means. Reza, from Indonesia in the Asia West Pacific Section, shared his story on fasting. At first fasting seemed like punishment, but on further reflection he thought it also inspired him to live within his means, making it possible to sustain the planet for our future generations.
We had good representation at each workshop from each of the FWCC sections. This was one of the main strengths of the series as a whole – if you’re going to work as a global community to help prevent climate change, you need worldwide representation, including those on the frontlines of climate justice and action.
In the last and final session we aimed to express our hopes for the whole global Quaker community, and to explore what comes next. Speaking personally, I felt a little deflated after it. After ten weeks together, hearing stories from around the world, sharing how the Quaker testimonies related to climate change, I had hoped there would be a powerful call to action. I wanted there to be one quick fix. I thought Young Quakers would say ‘this is the way to stop climate change’. Something that would make it all go away. But that was naive: alas, and of course, this could not happen.
Perhaps that’s the problem. We’re all looking to one another to find the solution. Looking to young Friends to fix the problems that generations before us have caused through mass consumption and lack of awareness of the interconnectedness of the shared earth.
Before the final session, on the planning committee we said ‘What will happen will happen’ and ‘What needs to be said will be said’ – something true from the god within each of us, not looking to a leader for an answer.
And so maybe what was said was said. There isn’t a large global call to the rest of the Quaker community for now, other than to listen and hold this space. It’s not a quick fix, but it might fix a lot of things if we really did it properly. When we listen to others, we also offer space to listen to ourselves, and reflect on what it is that we can do.
In the final session what was said was: ‘Yes, we want to be an international community and to learn from one another.’ What was also said was: ‘Let’s be sensitive, let’s be gentle.’ And finally: ‘Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story and for one another.’ Gratitude because the world seemed a bit less strange now.
Two days after the final session I was part of a conversation on the Interfaith Liaison Committee, which works with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There were four speakers from around the world and people of all faiths, passionate about climate action. One of the speaker’s words stuck with me: we need to listen to our own ‘inner chaos’ and only then might we fix some of the problems that chaos has created.
I encourage you to go and look at the video testimonies of young Friends from around the world on the FWCC website. Read the summary statements and explore how the words speak to you. If you are a young Friend and would like to get involved, we would love to hear from you. The workshop series provided a lot of encouragement, nourishment and spiritual discipline to allow young Friends to continue our climate work in our pockets of politics and power. Maybe that’s the answer after all. A combination of personal and community discipline – and, of course, practice.
Faith is the sustainability and communications support officer for FWCC. To keep up to date with FWCC’s sustainability work, email sustainability@fwcc.world. For the next series, FWCC is working with Woodbrooke to create an intergenerational space for ‘those who are young at heart as well as those who are young in age’.
