Check out the final edition of our newsletter Quaker Concern for 2024

It only comes out three times a year and so this is the last edition of our newsletter Quaker Concern for 2024.

This edition features three articles along with highlights of recent work and travel in support of justice and peace.

You can read the current issue (as well as past ones) online or download it in PDF.

Mel Burns, CFSC’s Peace Program Coordinator.

Seeing the Light even in the people we disagree with

By Matthew Legge

I recently had the chance to talk about life and service work with our newest staff member—Peace Program Coordinator, Mel Burns. The topics ranged from light reading and podcasts to seeing the Light in people we disagree with or find challenging.

Matt: What has it been like joining the CFSC staff?

Mel: I’ve been delighted by the incredible depth of knowledge and experience on the staff team. I’ve remarked to many of my friends that it feels like I’m working with my heroes everyday, and those heroes are equally (and strangely) excited to work with me too. The sense of excitement among all the staff to see the work of CFSC flourish is tangible, and infectious… Keep reading ››

CFSC’s handout Alternatives to Prison.

Justice: transformative, restorative, punitive—what’s the difference?

By Karen Ridd

As a small child I had night terrors. One recurring fear was about prison: I was petrified that I might accidentally commit some harm and be put behind bars. Reflecting on my childhood anxiety, I notice that, while I might have had a shaky grasp on Canada’s legal system, I absolutely grasped the heart of the punishment. Humans are relational. To use Desmond Tutu’s explanation of the Zulu word ubuntu: “I exist because you exist.” To rip us from the ones we love, to deny contact between us, is to cut at the very heart of what it means to be human. So maybe I was born to be an abolitionist.

Despite understanding intuitively a central problem with our carceral system (that we somehow expect people to become better when we isolate them from love) it was years before it dawned on me that prisons might not be an unchangeable “fact of life.”… Keep reading ››

Interfaith Water Ceremony organised by Tsleil-Waututh Sacred Trust at Whey-ah-Wichen to show continued opposition to the TransMountain Pipeline. Photo: Mary Paquet.

Paddling alongside the Tsleil-Waututh Nation

By Rob Hughes

Canadian Friends Service Committee’s vital work supporting Indigenous peoples’ human rights is rooted in building respectful relationships. As a Quaker peace and social justice organization, CFSC endeavours to ensure that its decisions and actions are grounded in Spirit. Many of our Indigenous partners are similarly guided by Spirit. Article 25 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms:

Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied lands, territories, waters, coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard... Keep reading ››

All donors to CFSC get the option of a free subscription to Quaker Concern in print. Please donate now to support justice and peace and receive Quaker Concern as our thank you gift!