Showing posts with label Justice and Peace Network. Show all posts
National NJPN Conference July 2014
JRS-UK volunteer, Victoria, looks back at her summer experience of joining other colleagues working on social justice issues at a national conference.
I went to the National Justice and Peace Network at The Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick in Derbyshire. We went by car so we could take lots of publicity and craft materials to promote JRS.
The programme was very full and interesting. We had talks from people like Sarah Teather, Liberal Democrat MP, who spoke about her career as MP and the challenges she came across. Gemma Simmonds CJ, Senior Lecturer in Pastoral and Social Studies and Theology at Heythrop College, spoke about priests and the priesthood: how they are looked upon the need for change. Mary Colwell, an award winning TV, radio and internet producer who makes programmes for the BBC, spoke about the churches’ action or lack of support for the issue of the annual culling of migrant birds in place like Malta and France. Another part of the discussion included wider issues of over eating of meat and the ecological impact that farming cattle has on the environment. Clare Dixon OBE , who has many years of experience of working with people in Latin America as head of CAFOD, gave a talk as well as a workshop which I attended. The workshop included a slideshow, a similar one to one I had seen a few years ago when CAFOD commissioned TenTen Theatre (an educational theatre company for whom I also work) a play on climate change called "Degrees of Change". The other workshop I attended was titled "Community Reconciliation" facilitated by Rev Dr Inderjit Bhogal who was leader of the Corrymeela Community in Ireland.
Participating in this event was a new experience for me. And it has changed the way I look at conferences and how they can help networking for both organisations and individuals. Next time I go I think I would pay more attention to the many participants to meet there. Because it was all new and novel a lot of people were a bit of a blur for me! The experience of meeting other people from other organisations & even parishes was special. It has wider value to us as a community because we are seeing the variety of different organisations out there helping: from education through to an organisation that trained dogs as companions to the elderly.
I would most certainly go again. My faith in the past has taken me to Rome, Italy & Lourdes, France & the Aylesford Priory (when I was still quite young & in school). I hadn't been to a conference for a while either, so the whole experience felt positive.
For more info about the conference: <http://www.columbans.co.uk/news/national-njpn-conference-july-2014/>
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One of our bags is missing...
Volunteers and staff took part in the National Justice and
Peace Network Annual Conference 'Breaking Open The Word' in Derbyshire. It was
quite a journey...
We were
invited to run a workshop from JRS and decided to offer one on Gospel Based
Attitudes to Welcoming Refugees. A lot of
advance planning was needed, which helped structure our contributions. The workshop was led by Liliane and Br Joe,
two of our volunteers at the JRS day centre, who were able to share their
personal experience of accompanying refugees and making an asylum application
in the UK.
We were
invited to run a workshop from JRS and decided to offer one on Gospel Based
Attitudes to Welcoming Refugees. A lot of
advance planning was needed, which helped structure our contributions. The workshop was led by Liliane and Br Joe,
two of our volunteers at the JRS day centre, who were able to share their
personal experience of accompanying refugees and making an asylum application
in the UK.
Liliane
was so nervous in advance that she was shaking, but she was happy while
facilitating the workshop. None of the
participants would have known she was so nervous in advance! Most of the
participants were already interested in the topic and were in fact already
accompanying refugees themselves.
"It was very encouraging to see their involvement. They wanted affirmation and hope from the workshop",
says Liliane, who was encouraged herself by their response to her story.
The
workshop was able to share hope, while pointing out how perilous the asylum
process can be for people going through it, and participants left renewed in
their will to act positively; some wanting to engage local parishes in
awareness raising, or wanting to volunteer in local projects.
The
workshop took place in a wider context of the conference which invited those
present to reconsider, through worship and through the input of Megan McKenna,
to hear the Gospel afresh and to live it out every day.
The
conference was a fantastic experience, though we ended on a bittersweet note of
losing the bag full of crafts made by refugees in Kenya at Derby station. We hope whoever has them now enjoys them
fully! Unfortunately the bag lost is the
one we normally use at the day centre to collect sandwiches donated by Pret a
Manger... Oops!
Tag :
crafts,
Gospel,
Justice and Peace Network,
lost bag,
refugees,
volunteers,
welcoming,
workshops,
