Concern for Poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand
- Quaker Meetings have endorsed and are active in two campaigning organisations: The Living Wage Movement and Child Poverty Action Group.
For example, some Meetings made submissions to their local Councils, asking that they pay all their workers the Living Wage. Meetings ensure all contractors engaged by them pay their workers the Living Wage (currently $27.80/hr).
Other Meetings support low-decile schools and families through donations of money and needed items.
The Quaker Lecture in 2015, given initially at our Yearly Meeting and then toured throughout New Zealand, was given by Bryan Bruce, and highlighted the facts and reality of poverty within New Zealand, and our very high wealth gap. You can view the full text of the Lecture here.
- The 2013 Quaker Lecture entitled "ENOUGH! The challenge of a post-growth economy" was given by Jeanette Fitzsimons.
As humanity starts to reach and exceed the limits of growth modelled by the Club of Rome in 1972, two possible futures stand in stark contrast: a failed growth economy, or a Steady State described here as an economy of Enough. A willingness to say "I have enough now; the rest is for others, or for Nature" could usher in a future that is dynamic, congenial, prosperous, and ecologically and socially rich. We would have less stuff but more time and richer relationships. However, the challenges are daunting. Such an economy requires fundamental change to our economic goals, our tax and monetary systems, the framework of capitalism and, hardest of all, to our values and our image of ourselves as human beings. This lecture discusses the challenges of an economy of Enough.
You can view the full text of the 2013 Lecture here. (431KB .pdf)
As well as responding to the acute needs of those suffering from the results of war or famine, Quakers have increasingly realised the importance of taking a longer-term approach to reducing world poverty.
In 1999, British Quaker, Jennifer Kavanagh, set up Street Cred to provide small loans to refugees and impoverished immigrant women in Birmingham, UK. Having learnt from her experience there, she went on to work in Madagascar, South Africa and Ghana, training local people to run micro credit schemes.
- Quakers support organisations that set up grassroots income-generating projects in developing countries.
Right Sharing of World Resources is one such organisation. These projects are led by women, many of whom are making less than a dollar a day. Beginning in 1967, it provides microcredit to women in Kenya, Sierra Leone and southern India.
Another example of this approach is the Quaker Bolivia Link, established in 1995. QBL funds small community-initiated projects aimed at improving the quality of life of impoverished, rural indigenous Aymara people, through community empowerment and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods.
