Yearly Meeting 2024: Preparation - part four
The Friend reports from the first days of Yearly Meeting preparation sessions and special interest meetings
On Saturday evening the Quaker Arts Network asked How do the arts envision our witness? Amanda Jones, from the network, began by discussing some of its output over many years, most recently with the Loving Earth stitchwork project, which was now touring the world. Other examples – video this time – included the creative celebration of the 400th anniversary of George Fox’s birth. Amanda also mentioned the poetry workshops and writing groups with which members were involved.
Amanda then asked the eighteen Friends gathered to talk about how the arts inspire their own witness. One Friend talked about working with groups with similar values, such as a project she was engaged on with Afghani women. Another found that, when Friends did not want to attend a protest march themselves, they were able to contribute by making placards, streamers and banners that could be used; it helped them feel included.
‘We’re creating community wherever we share our expression,’ said another Friend, while another talked of how working in community art could reach places words couldn’t reach. This was a feeling with which Friends were very familiar, close to Quaker worship. ‘It evolves and develops as you work at it.’
A Journeying together slot set up by Quaker Rainbow – formerly the Friends LGBTQ+ Fellowship – became a worship-sharing session. It was moving and profound and, of course, completely confidential. Readers should seek out Quaker Rainbow voices once Yearly Meeting starts; they have important things for Friends to hear.
Quaker Values in Education is a group for Quakers with an interest in education to share approaches, learning, insight and inspiration. Fourteen Friends discussed their professional history and concerns, which ranged from the academic, to advising and lobbying government, to nursery schooling. The group was encouraged to consider new ways in which they could pursue their key aims of embedding Quaker testimonies into educational systems. This began with the maxim that ‘Every person in precious’.
Having a new government was an exciting opportunity, some felt; new projects could begin there, encouraging Labour to expand the curriculum again, to include people whose skills were in technical or social work, not just academic. In terms of educational ethos, what some people understood as ‘British values’, such as fairness, could map pretty well onto Quaker values, said one Friend. All the ingredients were there for success.
A session on the Work of Quaker bodies on migration and peace sought to explore human-rights-based migration governance, and the work of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO), Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) and the Quaker Asylum & Refugee Network (QARN) to promote a more compassionate and just response to migration.
Laurel Townhead discussed QUNO’s aim to ensure people’s dignity is upheld during migration. QUNO is working to end legal disregard to border violence and establish an investigative mechanism for this. It is calling for the International Organization for Migration to establish a migrant advisory board to inform the organisation with lived experience, and is actively working on dismantling racist language within migrant legislation.
Saskia Basa discussed how QCEA is promoting peaceful solutions between Europe and the rest of the world, especially regarding the continuing tensions surrounding the EU pact on migration asylum. Its priorities include producing a handbook on peaceful approaches to migration, enabling dialogue, and offering training for new MEPs on topics such as nonviolent communication.
Fred Ashmore and Ginny Bauman described the power of QARN as a network to share information, perceptions and reports, and explained its many links with different organisations and campaigns. The group is endeavouring to reach out to new MPs and encourage them to consider and adopt QARN’s core policies, which include ending detention, allowing asylum seekers to work, and the provision of effective legal help.
The speakers were joined by thirty-five Friends, who were asked to address questions such as ‘Where is home, and where else was once home for us?’, encouraging them to consider how ‘home’ is a transient thing, subject to circumstances and change. This, along with the opportunity for all participants to share any refugee-related work they were doing, centred and emboldened the attendees, and created a sense of hope, action and collaboration. Other challenging questions included, ‘What is freedom in a world with borders?’, raised by QCEA, and a wider question about how to balance supporting migrants while UK citizens are also struggling. These prompted positive group discussion, despite their complexity.
Writing by: Rebecca Hardy, journalist at the Friend; Imi Hills, a freelancer from West Weald Meeting; Joseph Jones, editor of the Friend; and Elinor Smallman, production manager at the Friend.
Next week: 8-10 July preparation sessions and special interest group sessions.
