Best in class: Isabel Cartwright answers some questions about Quaker peace work in schools
‘The skills they learn and practice will last a lifetime’
What’s your take on why peace work is such a focus for Quakers?
The Peace Testimony comes out of an insight at the heart of the Quaker faith: that there is ‘that of God’ in everyone. It comes from the experiences of Meeting together in worship, and has led Quakers from early in our history to take a clear stand for peace. Friends have done this in many ways, from throwing weapons into the sea to mediating in conflicts around the world. They have been locked up for refusing to kill.
Living in the ‘virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars’, as George Fox wrote in 1650, challenges us to work not only against war, but for justice and in ‘right relationship’, with family, neighbours and classmates, as well as between nations, and with the earth itself.
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