Quaker Peace Network - Africa

Over 50 Quaker peacemakers from throughout Africa met in Nairobi in August 2009 to grapple with the question: Are we actually building peace? In other words, are our peacebuilding strategies as effective as they could be?

QPSW Programme Manager for Peacebuilding in East Africa, Laura Shipler Chico, joined Friends who had travelled from 15 countries to be there: Britain, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States.

Our Strengths and Challenges

African Quakers shared their stories of resilience, of rising again from the horror of genocide, the rubble of civil war, and the betrayals of community violence. African Friends are quietly radical in their efforts to build peace – they bring enemies together; they seek God in perpetrators of violence; and they reach out to those who have attacked their families just as they offer comfort to those who have been hurt.

The question grappled with at this meeting was how to strengthen the links between that grassroots work and advocacy efforts to effect socio-political change.

Where We Go From Here

With forthcoming elections throughout the region, and lessons from Kenya’s election violence in 2007 fresh in their minds, African Quakers are joining forces to develop proactive civic education and election monitoring schemes designed to support the democratic process. Looking forward, they hope to strengthen their links with other peacebuilding groups, develop advocacy and lobbying skills that can be used to affect national change, and raise the international profile of their work and its influence on key decision makers.

As QPSW enters into a new phase of work in the region, this meeting was the perfect doorway. Many seeds were planted and invitations extended. Who knows where we will go from here? For now, to use Emily Dickinson’s words, we “dwell in possibility.”