Celebration & challenge

Yesterday I spoke to Quakers in Woking about Never Again as part of a day called Africa: Celebration and Challenge.

While I was there to talk about peacebuilding and reconciliation, the other speakers created an very varied programme. We heard about Quaker practice in Kenya, where there are more Friends than anywhere else in the world, from Hazel Morris who worked in Zimbabwe for 2 months last year and Robin Robison who lobbies huge international institutions for fairer trade and debt relief.

There were connections at many points. Hazel Morris painted a bleak picture of Zimbabwe, where people feel, she said 'very, very isolated'. On an international level the country is isolated, which is why the currency has been able to collapse where inother countries it would have been rescued by the IMF to avoid scenes reminiscent of 1930s Germany. Money needs to be transported in huge bags and nobody can predict prices or goods supplies from week to week.

The school at which Hazel taught operates a feeding programme for all the children and she said that many children had no food over the weekend - these children came in on Monday quiet and apathetic.

Just as Hitler was defended for his strong leadership, so Mugabe is now defended by many Africans who may be letting their anger at the West blind them to the cost of his failure to protect people.

In Kenya church-going is an occupation that takes all Sunday as people socialise and study the Bible. Nairobi has silent (unprogrammed) and programmed evangelical Meetings running in parallel so that people can join the worship they prefer for as long as they feel comfortable.

Various people at the talk were able to offer advice - and in many cases their children! - to Never Again. A Kenyan member of a London Meeting suggested that we work with the Friends Committee for Consultation, who have an office in Nairobi. Another Kenyan said that there is a lot of tribal conflict that still needed addressing and that Never Again's ideas would be welcome there.

In Britain, it was suggested that the Woodcraft Folk might make good partners, I know them from my childhood but hadn't realised they run projects around the world. Other connections were suggested that could see us reaching out to India and the Middle East.

The day was inspiring and its high attendance showed the level of interest in Africa and the willingness of Quakers here to reach out and learn more from their African Friends, Quakers or not.

Quakers in Britain have already supported Never Again generously, specifically helping to fund our Kigali office and a meeting between clubs. I hope we can call on them for help and support in the future - we have a lot to learn from their strong structures, core beliefs and practices like discernment and, in the words of George Fox 'Walking cheerfully over the word, seeing that of God in everyone'.