Our Peace and International Concerns

Refugees and asylum seekers  As a Meeting for Sanctuary over many years, we have given personal and some financial support to asylum seekers from Iraq, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Nigeria, Congo, Egypt and Russia. Two Friends took a family from Ukraine into their home.

We support an annual retreat for workers with asylum seekers who are overstressed by their work and close to burn-out;  two of our members have helped to organise and lead this.  

At the Refugee Workers’ Retreat,
Charney Manor, September 2024

Uganda We have been supporting community projects in western Uganda since 1998, including landmine issues, adult literacy, nursery schools, girls’ clubs, and the development of a peace network and programme across Kasese District.  Two of our members have visited regularly, and others occasionally.  Our current work focuses on five voluntary schools high in the Rwenzori Mountains, and teaching women and girls how to make reusable sanitary pads.

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Peace and Environment  We try to live our lives in a sustainable way, and reduce the environ-mental footprint of our Meeting house, besides rewilding part of its garden. Some of us have worked for the West Midlands Quaker Peace Education giving training and support.  Others take part in demonstrations around environmental concerns and the arms trade.  We maintain a link with members of the Alternatives to Violence Programme in Ukraine, and send them modest financial support.

Link with Seir Village, Palestine
Two of our members maintain a regular link with a Palestinian village called Seir in a tense area close to the Israeli separation wall.  Others of us have visited.  We particularly support the Seir Women’s Co-operative and the school. We receive regular news of life there, which has become increasingly difficult, deprived and dangerous in the past year.

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