Latest News
Tunbridge Wells Friends help young homeless
West Kent Quakers are converting their Tunbridge Wells Meeting House to include ten single-occupancy flats for homeless young people. The young people will spend time in a more closely supported environment first, with the new flats seen as a half-way house. West Kent YMCA will provide support staff for the...
Philadelphia Quakers move towards disinvestment
The Eco-Justice Working Group of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has announced that more than $2 million of the group’s assets have been disinvested from fossil fuels. The group has moved its assets to a new Quaker Green Fund offered by Friends Fiduciary Corporation. The green fund focuses on sustainable agriculture, renewable...
Bath legacy from Quaker Gardens Project
The Quaker Gardens Project is to build a legacy garden at Bath University, to commemorate this year’s Yearly Meeting Gathering. The garden is to be a lasting gift from the Friends of the South West to the university, its staff and students. It will be developed on campus, next...
Bolivian Friend visits Northern Ireland prisons
Whilst attending the recent Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) International Gathering in Maynooth, County Kildare, Bolivian Friend Magaly Quispe Yujra visited Friends in Northern Ireland. She was hosted by South Belfast and Frederick Street Meetings, as part of Lisburn Monthly Meeting. Magaly visited two Quaker Service projects in Northern Ireland –...
Norwegian Quakers mark bicentenary
Norwegian Quakers gathered in Stavanger last week for their Yearly Meeting. This year’s event was special, with Friends celebrating 200 years of continued Quaker presence in Norway. While the first Quaker visits to Norway are believed to have taken place in 1657 or 1658, Quakerism really took root there when freed Napoleonic...
AVP international gathering in Ireland
More than 160 delegates from forty countries are gathering in Maynooth in Ireland from 13 to 19 July for the International Gathering of the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). The theme of the Gathering, which has been strongly supported by Quakers in Ireland, is ‘Diversity and Sustainability’.
JRF supports new journalism prize
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) is supporting a new prize for in-depth journalism. ‘The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils’ will be awarded for the first time in 2015. The name is taken from the task given to the JRF by its founder: ‘to search out the underlying causes...
Bootham students work in Quaker burial ground
On Tuesday 1 July some 400 Bootham School students, aged between eleven and eighteen, took part in a ‘whole school service day’. Inspired and organised by history teacher and deputy housemaster, Robert Hudson, the service day saw the students work on a range of projects within their local community.
QSA gains Living Wage Foundation certification
Quaker Social Action (QSA) has gained the Living Wage Foundation’s certification. This means that every member of the east London charity’s staff, including contracted workers, earns not just the minimum but the living wage. This is an hourly rate set independently and updated annually, according to the cost...
Three Westminster Friends receive honours
Three members of Westminster Meeting, London, featured in the recent birthday honours list. Michael Bartlet, lately parliamentary liaison secretary for the Religious Society of Friends in Britain from 1996 to 2013, was awarded an MBE for services to equality and social justice.