Quaker Earthcare Witness
Quaker Earthcare Witness is a network of North American Friends (Quakers) and other like-minded people who are taking spirit-led action to address the ecological and social crises of the world, emphasizing Quaker process and testimonies. Website: quakerearthcare.org.
- Quaker Earthcare Witness April 2024
Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) works to nurture a spiritual transformation in people’s relationship with the living world. QEW responds to critical issues of our time, such as climate change, biodiversity, overpopulation, and depletion of oceans and soil.
Last November, QEW collaborated with Earth Quaker Action Team to hold a hybrid meeting for worship outside the Vanguard headquarters in Malvern, Pa., to urge the company to act against climate change.
Earlier this year, QEW welcomed a new general secretary, Keith Runyan. The outgoing general secretary, Shelley Tanenbaum, faithfully served the organization for over a decade.
QEW will hold its spring gathering online April 25–28. Its biannual gatherings offer fellowship and plenary programs as well as opportunities to share recent accomplishments and explore future leadings. Visitors are welcome.
This spring, QEW will launch “QEW on the Road” and start a podcast to connect with Quakers across the United States and tell stories with communities most impacted by climate change.
QEW publishes a quarterly newsletter called BeFriending Creation, earthcare curricula for adults and children, as well as other publications and social media. QEW offers small grants to individual Friends and groups working on earthcare projects, especially those promoting environmental justice and youth engagement.
Continue reading → - Quaker Earthcare Witness October 2022
Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is a network of Friends taking Spirit-led action toward ecological integrity and environmental justice.
QEW organizes a range of events to connect, educate, and support Friends. This past spring and summer, these events included: (1) kicking off a workshop series on ecological grief—what it is and how to engage with it. Engaging in the grief process in a spiritual community supports resiliency and helps people discover the actions they are called to take; (2) collaborating with Earth Quaker Action Team to promote divestment from fossil fuels (and re-investment in renewables) with a focus on Vanguard; (3) hosting monthly online worship sharing in partnership with Friends General Conference (FGC); (4) a week of afternoon presentations at the virtual FGC Gathering; and (5) a racial wealth gap simulation, led by QEW co-clerk Beverly Ward, which helped participants understand the connections among racial inequity, hunger, poverty, and wealth.
QEW publishes a quarterly newsletter, BeFriending Creation, highlighting Friends’ actions and reflections on earthcare. Recent articles focused on land reparations to Indigenous Peoples, action on divestment from fossil fuels, living in right relationship with the living world, climate justice and militarism, local Friends climate action, the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, and sustainable economics.
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Continue reading → - Quaker Earthcare Witness April 2022
The primary goal of Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is to nurture a spiritual transformation in people’s relationship with the living world. It sponsors a range of events to reach out and support Friends. QEW hosts monthly online worship sharing. Friends greatly appreciate this opportunity to reflect on our individual and collective faith and climate action. The QEW Presents! program coordinates speakers who travel virtually or in-person to monthly meetings and Friends churches to share about a range of topics, such as discernment in nature, eco-spirituality, environmental justice, native landscaping, regenerative agriculture, alternative economics, and population. QEW also hosts monthly webinars. It is collaborating with EQAT to promote divestment from fossil fuels (and re-investment in renewables) with a focus on Vanguard. Past webinars include a discussion about mysticism and physics (January/February) and international climate activism and diplomacy (March). The organization offers matching $500 mini-grants in support of Friends groups’ eco-friendly projects. Recently supported projects include new raised beds for a community food project, an “Exploring Organisms with Literacy” curriculum for first graders at a Friends school, and a meditation garden using native landscaping. QEW also publishes a quarterly newsletter, BeFriending Creation, showcasing Friends’ actions and reflection on Earthcare. Recent articles focused on the human right to a healthy environment, protests against logging, and spiritual support for young climate activists.
Learn more: Quaker Earthcare Witness
Continue reading → - Quaker Earthcare Witness October 2021
Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) is a network of Friends working to inspire Spirit-led action toward ecological sustainability and environmental justice. QEW has grown out of a strong leading among Friends that the future depends on a spiritual transformation in humans’ relationships with each other and with the natural world. For over 30 years, QEW has helped Friends in North America integrate earthcare into their daily lives.
Over the summer, QEW members engaged in nonviolent direct action as part of the Indigenous-led resistance to the Line 3 tar sands pipeline construction in northern Minnesota. QEW is working in coalition to train, support, and mobilize Friends to engage with this movement.
QEW is hosting online monthly worship sharing sessions as well as regular workshops on a range of issues related to climate disruption. QEW speakers visited a dozen meetings and churches in the spring and summer for adult First-day school and Second Hour presentations.
The QEW newsletter, BeFriending Creation, inspires and encourages organizing and action, and its other publications offer a Quaker perspective on environmental issues.
QEW recently hired a new staff assistant, a position which will increase its capacity to serve Friends and the earth during this time of global emergency.
Learn more: Quaker Earthcare Witness
Continue reading → - Quaker Earthcare Witness April 2021
Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) connects Friends who carry a concern for Earth, creating a supportive community for inspiring and empowering action while also providing a place for reflection and solace. QEW responds to critical issues of our time, such as climate change, biodiversity, ocean and soil depletion, and overpopulation, and acts on these concerns through a lens of environmental justice.
The QEW network has wide-ranging resources to share with Friends meetings and churches. QEW also seeks to educate and provoke action through the newsletter, BeFriending Creation; the earthcare curricula for adults and children; and other publications and social media. QEW offers $500 grants to individual Friends and groups who are working on an earthcare project, especially ones that promote environmental justice and youth.
During these past six months, as part of the recently launched QEW Presents! speakers bureau, QEW members have been visiting meetings around the United States to offer workshops on a range of topics, including the interconnections of the pandemic, regenerative agriculture, the power of silence, climate justice, and the financial and economic roots of the climate emergency. The speakers will continue to visit meetings virtually this spring and welcome invitations.
Starting in February, QEW has also been hosting monthly online worship sharing groups in partnership with Friends General Conference.
Learn more: Quaker Earthcare Witness
Continue reading → - Quaker Earthcare Witness October 2020
Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) works to connect Friends who are taking Spirit-led action on earthcare in North America and to inspire a Quaker response to the compounding crises of our times. QEW shares stories of Friends in action through print and online publications, like its quarterly newsletter BeFriending Creation, and it sponsors workshops and presentations in Quaker communities.
QEW has responded to the global pandemic and the racial justice uprising by asking big questions about its role in creating a more just world, the possibility of rapid change during a crisis, how it can better partner with the environmental justice movement and with frontline communities, and its role in institutionalized racism as a Friends organization.
In April, QEW hosted a successful online Steering Committee meeting of more than 60 Friends from across the United States and Canada. It also hosted a series of monthly online worship sharing opportunities in partnership with Friends General Conference.
This summer and fall, eight members of QEW are virtually visiting meetings around the United States to offer workshops on a range of topics: COVID-19 and climate change; regenerative agriculture; water; climate justice; the Work That Reconnects; the financial and economic roots of the climate emergency; and more. Workshop and presentation descriptions are available on the website.
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