Partnership – a foundational approach

Friends are founders and members of KAIROS, the ecumenical social justice agency. Pictured: Atlantic Friends with a banner made for a KAIROS action on Parliament Hill in June 2011.

CFSC’s understanding of partnership informs all of our work – we work in cooperation with individuals, Quaker Meetings, secular organizations, ecumenical organizations, indigenous organizations, etc.

Why?

We believe that work is best done by working with – and supporting – those directly affected by the issues involved, by working together with others with whom we share a common concern; by working with Quaker Meetings as partners on projects so that the work is connected from the grassroots right up to national and international policy levels.

Partnership, in a brief, is all about relationship – with each other as individuals and as organizations. The idea of partnership, in essence, has its roots in our understanding that we are called to love one another and that truth speaks most profoundly from those with direct experience. Our work and projects are informed by listening to peoples’ experience and what they understand to be the needs and solutions to problems that directly affect them and their communities.  This is the path to a transformed world: broadening circles, respecting one another’s knowledge and experience, and working together.

Organizations with which CFSC works in partnership

CYM and CFSC are members or partners of a wide range of organizations through which we undertake work of common concern in partnership.  In most cases, CYM or CFSC appoint Friends to serve on the boards and committees of these partner organizations and CFSC funds the costs of representation and any required financial contribution as a part of membership.  The partners that CFSC actively works with include:

• Canadian Council for Refugees
• Canadian Council for International Cooperation
• Canadian Council of Churches
• Church Council on Justice and Corrections
• International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
• KAIROS
• National Association of Agencies in Criminal Justice
• Ontario Council for International Cooperation
• Project Ploughshares
• Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation
• War Resisters Support Campaign
• Amnesty International
• Assembly of First Nations
• Chiefs of Ontario
• First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada
• First Nations Summit
• Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)
• Native Women’s Association of Canada
• Union of BC Indian Chiefs