Dear Friends,
New England YM had asked us to submit a written report for our work this past year. Attached in MS Word is what was sent to them. (Also pasted below). If Friends find it helpful in your own meetings and outreach please use it or add to it!
Also, as you are speaking with Friends who have either had experience with FPT/AGLI or touched and inspired by our work, please ask them to write that up to be shared in our newsletters. We need to start hearing those voices.
Thanks and peace, anna
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Friends Peace Teams Annual Report to Yearly Meetings 2006
It’s been a wonderful year for Friends Peace Teams. Through interviews with Burundian participants we have learned how the Healing and Rebuilding our Communities (HROC) program has changed their lives and the lives of family and community members as well. Read their stories in our report, After the Guns Have Stopped: Searching for Reconciliation in Burundi.
Mpawenayo Dennis, a HROC participant in Burundi told us, “I wish to have HROC teachings in all the villages and in the countryside. There are some who still have the spirit of revenge because they don’t know the causes of their anger and hate. HROC can help them see their hidden self. If these teachings reach others I think it will help bring reconciliation and peace.” Planning is underway to take HROC to other regions in need of healing from war.
Our Latin America/Caribbean program sent a team to Colombia to conduct more AVP workshops. While there, we are also reaching out to local community peace initiatives to learn how FPT can further support their work. The response is overwhelming; these communities want to experience HROC for themselves.
Through the support of a grant from the United States Institute for Peace, African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) has been able to expand (HROC). A training manual is in the final stages. With our partners we have developed an advanced training program to prepare more community facilitators and have developed a training program for “Healing Companions”. “Healing Companions” are former HROC participants who will offer trauma healing support in communities in Burundi and Rwanda.
AGLI continues to advance and support AVP workshops in Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Kenya. This year a team conducted AVP at the Congo-Rwanda border to help peacemakers working in this region. Through AGLI we are also supporting the hiring of Getry Agizah for the AVP-Kakamega Lubao Peace Centre.
While North American participation in AGLI work-camps was lower this year the importance and significance of their work has not been diminished. Work campers are completing the Kakamega Lubao Peace Centre in Kenya, building a clinic for the Friends Women’s Association in Kamenge, Burundi, and continuing to work on classrooms in Rwanda and Uganda.
AGLI sponsored speaking tours in the US and England. Our African colleague Adrien Niyongabo recently addressed Friends in England. David Bucura recently returned to Rwanda after attending the FGC Gathering, several Yearly Meetings and conferences in the US. Soon Elie Nahimana will be visiting and Adrien Niyongabo, and Cecile Nyiramana will tour in 2007.
We are excited to be opening our home office at the Friends Meetinghouse in St. Louis, MO. Anna Sandidge has been hired as our full-time coordinator and will be working to support our current programs and help expand our work as Way opens. We continue to discern in Spirit and work within Quaker testimonies. It is gratifying that representation and participation from Yearly Meetings is growing. Your support is invaluable as our work with communities in conflict expands. Together we are creating more programs and reaching new communities with peacebuilding, healing and reconciliation. Thank you for joining us in work that is changing lives and healing communities.
Anna Sandidge
Coordinator, Friends Peace Teams
314-664-8551
1001 Park Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63104
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.