Latest News
Friends campaign for anti-nuclear treaty
Quaker Meetings in Hexham, Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Brighton are planning to display banners to mark the historic deadline of 22 January when the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is ratified. Honduras became the fiftieth state to sign the treaty in October 2020, meaning that it now comes into...
Migrants Day plea for justice
York Quakers created textile butterflies to send to their local MPs, with letters urging them to back changes to the government’s migration policies. The move was to mark International Migrants Day on 18 December, for which staff from Friends House delivered a statement to the Home Office.
QSA gives £10k to homeless taskforce
Quaker Social Action (QSA) provided a £10k grant to the Covid-19 Homeless Taskforce last month to help people in London affected by homelessness.
Caution over places of worship exemption
Quaker Meetings can choose to open their Meetings during the UK’s third national lockdown, but several faith leaders have expressed unease over the exemption of places of worship.
New Year message
The challenges facing Quakerism in 2021 were set out in a New Year blog written by Britain Yearly Meeting’s recording clerk Paul Parker.
Quakers grapple with pandemic
2020 was dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic. As the UK ended the year, and the official death rate approached 75,000, Friends continued to meet in ‘blended’ online and in-person Meetings. Despite the restrictions in place since March, Quaker worship and work continued, providing sustenance and support for those most isolated.
Black Lives Matter
2020 was also marked by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which swept the world following the death of George Floyd in the US. The Quaker organisation American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) condemned the police violence surrounding the killing, branding it ‘the consequence of a racist system that disproportionately targets people...
Green shoots
Friends continued their witness on the climate emergency, following the ominous warnings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2018 that there are just twelve years to limit the most devastating impacts of global warming. The year ended with disappointment as campaign and faith groups, including Quakers, said...
Breakthrough on anti-nuclear ban
There were reasons to celebrate, however, as news broke in October that the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) had been ratified by the fiftieth state. With Honduras signing, the treaty will enter into international legal force on 22 January. The Northern Friends Peace Board called the news...
Yearly Meeting online
Around 760 Friends gathered for the first online Yearly Meeting in November, glad to come together after months of Covid-19-induced separation. ‘This is exciting, isn’t it?’, said Clare Scott Booth, as she opened YM 2020 with an image of The Light at Friends House as a backdrop. Matters considered included...