2011 was quite a remarkable year of growth, of challenge, and of change at St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation & Peace. Some of the highlights are shared below...
COMMUNITY PROGRAMMES
We have had a fascinating time throughout 2011 developing our community storytelling programme. This involved reaching out to faith communities in Bow and in Queens Park, sharing and listening to the real life stories and experiences of people from all walks of life. This has been a very rewarding programme, characterised by small scale events with a very warm, human feel to them, and some very memorable moments. Highlights included a workshop for imams, rabbis and priests exploring how storytelling can be used to improve communication skills, a ‘human library’ event at a community festival in Mile End (where an entirely unique collection of human books shared their stories with festival goers), and an evening with the London Interfaith Centre where neighbouring faith communities shared the story of their place of worship and their history in the local area over a delicious dinner.
Conversations for the Soul, our tandem dialogue interfaith programme, went from strength to strength this year under Marianne Zeck’s care. Highlights have included a Jewish-Muslim programme in collaboration with West London Synagogue and City Circle, an event for young people as part of National Interfaith Week with Kingston Inter Faith Forum, and a very well attended training workshop for university chaplains in collaboration with the NUS. Next year we will continue working with the NUS and also with the Christian Muslim Forum and the Cambridge Interfaith Programme.
In collaboration with Faith Matters we have established a national consortium on the English Defence League. The consortium brings together academics, community leaders, local authorities and the police, to share information, experiences and best practice around responding to EDL activity. We are also developing links in Luton where the EDL was formed, and where we hope to do some dialogue work between Muslims and white working class residents.
In December, working with St Paul's Cathedral, also convened a fascinating dialogue between Occupy London and the CEO of the Financial Services Authority on regulation. It was a very successful meeting in terms of building trust and putting the issues on the table. We hope to continue these conversations in 2012.
YOUTH PROJECTS
The Gullion Link Exchange programme for teenagers in Northern Ireland and London entered its third year as a group from the Loyalist community in Newry visited Tower Hamlets in July, with the return visit in October. It was great to welcome back previous participants from both places who helped lead the programme, as well as to work in partnership with the Magnet Young Adult Centre and Altnaveigh House in Newry. Through activities as varied as sharing each others’ life stories, to visiting East London Mosque, to meeting ex-paramilitaries in Belfast, to seeing Jedward in a Peace III funded community concert – the groups broke down barriers and prejudices, engaging in deep and sometimes difficult conversations about race, religion, violence and the essence of their very identities.
Something we hadn't anticipated when we began this project three years ago was for the primary funders, The Associated Companies, to become so interested and supportive of the work. An unexpected consequence of this was that in May we took representatives from the four livery companies - the Broderers, the Cooks, the Masons and the Mercers - to Newry to walk the beautiful Ring of Gullion (albeit rather wet and windy at the time!). The Ring of Gullion, situated in South Armagh, is designated an Area of Outstanding Beauty and forms a ring a mountains created when part of the active volcano collapsed. We were accompanied on the walk by young people from Newry who had taken part in the exchange, and local guides from South Armagh. The members of the Associated Companies were welcomed to Newry by the Mayor, members of the Council and of the local faith and business communities. The Sinn Fein MP for the area also met with the group.
TRAINING & RESOURCES
We’ve had a rich year adding publications and resources to our library. In March we launched ‘Youth Refusing Violence’ (a handbook of tools for young people) and ‘What’s Your Story?’ (our guide to story and narrative-based approaches to community building). We also published resource material for Conversations for the Soul, and our ‘Principles of Dialogue Facilitation’.
We have continued to run training in dialogue facilitation skills, listening and authentic communication, storytelling and refusing violence for a wide range of groups including local authorities, university and hospital chaplains, diaspora communities, young people and educators. We have developed a new training course in the area of forum theatre.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
In the summer, over 700 of you joined us for a spectacular and uplifting celebration of the work of St Ethelburga's in St Paul's Cathedral. This marked the launch of our new strategic plan which will give a sharper focus to St Ethelburga's community cohesion work in the coming years. In addition to streamlining our existing work, the plan envisages two important new developments: the creation of a new "mutual listening" service, designed to offer direct help to people in divided situations, and focusing on resilience and the cultivation of a community of people who are acting on divisive issues in their own communities and lives. Alongside this the Centre itself will remain a hub and a home for practitioners, activists and those who support our work.
Achieving financial sustainability is a central component of the plan. In May we took on a Director of Development to work with the team towards this goal.
The landscape around St Ethelburga's has markedly changed with the demolition of the surrounding buildings. The north side of the old church is now exposed and we have more light coming into the garden. We have a good relationship with the developers, Brookfield, who have sponsored our Listen to the World concert series throughout the last year and into 2012.
SIMON
Simon's illness during the summer came as a real shock to us all. The St Ethelburga's team have really valued the gestures of kindness and support, the prayers and the well wishes that so many of you have sent our way. We have enjoyed working with Paul Wilson who has been with us as Interim Director since September and who will be staying on into the new year. Simon will be returning to work part time this month under strict instructions to not overdo it!
LOOKING FORWARD
We are feeling excited about the coming year. Over the next few months we are looking forward to developing our services and training further, working more with people in their local communities and continuing our superb Listen to the World world music programme. Thanks to pro bono support from ISG we are also looking forward to having some much needed improvement work being done to the interior of St Ethelburga's which will make it a more comfortable place to visit and be.
For St Ethelburga's 2011 was a productive year with some great results (and also some unexpected challenges). Our aim in 2012 is to be a strong and continued force for peace.