Exploring Our Quaker Roots: Moving Towards Repair

This 6-month course is for Friends in Britain Yearly Meeting to deepen their engagement with Quaker reparations within a supportive and structured group. We will work together to hold the complex multiple lineages of our Quaker roots: of Quakers being both fierce advocates for social justice and abolition of slavery in Britain, and beneficiaries from as well as perpetrators of slavery and colonialism.

The course is aimed at Friends from Britain Yearly Meeting who have already started their engagement with Quaker reparations or are looking to engage more deeply, and is primarily aimed at Friends who are white, who are looking to understand what our responsibility is in relation to the harms of the past and present. Friends from the global majority are also welcome attend with knowledge that this course will be grappling with themes of responsibility and repair.

Together we will be exploring:

In asking these questions we look to understand how we may work towards social justice in our own lives, alongside other Friends, as well as shoulder to shoulder with all those engaged in building better worlds.

The six live sessions will include opportunities for individual reflection, small group discussion, and participation in full group, interactive activities. Between sessions, there will be a range of engaging writings, audio and video content for you to read/watch/listen to. You will be encouraged to draw on this content within sessions.

The 6-month format is offered to provide space for a slower and deeper engagement, with space for reflection and to support us in metabolising the impact of these complex and contradicting lineages of Quaker enslavement on us personally and collectively, guiding us towards action.

Live sessions will take place on Zoom on the first Thursday of every month at 18:30-20:30 (UK time).