Yearly Meeting Gathering news
From bearing witness with white poppies to an all-age community
Bear witness with white poppies
Friends wishing to show their opposition to the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair in London this September can to do so even if they are unable to bear witness in person.
They can make white poppies between five and ten centimetres across out of textile (fabric, knitting, crochet) to represent individual victims of the arms trade.
These will form part of an Art the Arms Fair (ATAF) exhibition in the capital to coincide with the arms fair at the ExCeL Centre.
Friends at Yearly Meeting Gathering made poppies doe the exhibition (see photo bottom left).
The Art the Arms Fair exhibition will be at SET Studios, Capstan House, London E14 from 12-15 September.
Quaker Social Action celebrates 150 years
A celebratory tea to launch a magazine marking Quaker Social Action’s (QSA) 150 years of campaigning against poverty was held at Yearly Meeting Gathering.
Judith Moran, QSA director, pointed to the values behind the organisation’s work, and the ever-changing nature of its approach to working alongside people suffering poverty in the UK.
She said: ‘At the end of the twentieth century, under two inspirational directors, Michael Sorensen and then Mike Jenn, we took shape into the kind of charity we are today; striving to be innovative, creative, to respond to new needs… and, above all, to ensure that “how” we did things – with dignity, respect and compassion – mattered as much as “what” we did.’
Judith Moran has been announced as a finalist in the ‘Charity Chief Executive’ section of the Third Sector Excellence Awards for 2017. The awards ceremony will be held on 21 September at the London Marriott Hotel.
New sustainability communications officer at FWCC
Susanna Mattingly has been appointed as the new sustainability communications officer for the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) and the Quaker World Relations Committee (QWRC).
She will work jointly with FWCC and QWRC to build Friends’ collaborative work in the area of sustaining life on earth.
The newly created post, supported by Britain Yearly Meeting’s Legacy Fund, is intended to move forward action on two minutes from international gatherings of Quakers: the ‘Kabarak call to peace and eco justice’ from the World Conference of Friends held in Kenya in 2012; and the ‘Sustainability minute’ approved at the World Plenary Meeting held in Peru last year.
When young carers grow up
‘I need to take care of me so I can take care of others better.’ This quote, from someone who will be taking part in a new project by Quaker Social Action (QSA), gave Friends at a special interest group on Tuesday afternoon at Yearly Meeting Gathering an insight into the people they are seeking to help.
QSA’s ‘Move On Up’ project, opening its doors this month, seeks to provide support for young adult carers to live independently. Children who have cared, and young adults who continue to care, for family members have often had less time to focus on their education, are less likely to have a well paid job, and have fewer opportunities to build social networks. They can ‘struggle to define an adult life for themselves beyond being a carer’.
The ‘Move On Up’ project is making four three-bedroom properties in East London available to eighteen – to twenty-five-year-olds who are, or have been, carers. With a dedicated support worker to help them, the project aims to provide stable, affordable shared accommodation.
The project is a collaboration with Commonweal Housing, Quaker Homeless Action and the Carers Trust.
All-age community
Children and young people were a significant part of the all-age Yearly Meeting Gathering community.
Forty-three adult volunteers and five members of staff cared for: 120 children up to the age of eleven; forty-five young people aged eleven to fourteen; and sixty-two participants in Junior Yearly Meeting, who were between fourteen to seventeen.
Young people helped to plan programmes and facilitate groups. In all-age worship sessions with the wider Yearly Meeting they joined in the main meeting hall for ministry, lectures and stories.
