Each year Bath Quakers sends modest donations to selected charities. Hearing back from them is a good chance to catch up with their progress. In recent weeks for example our Treasurer Sally Harris has heard from Izzy Thorne at the Quaker Tapestry Museum, who writes to say:

It is thanks to generous donations from individuals like yourselves that the Quaker Tapestry can grow and flourish. We are currently raising funds to install automatic doors at our main entrance and improve signage to and throughout the building. We hope to complete these works by the end of the year. We are also developing a brand new programme of workshops, using the tapestry panels to prompt and inspire participants to respond to them through creative writing. Two workshops have been held to date and the writing that has been produced is a testament to the power of the ‘stories behind the stitches’.

Visitors connue to be amazed by the tapestries and by the Quaker influence on so many aspects of our society and culture. Working with the local community is also key to our success. Our latest project involved creating a new panel to remember the flooding of December 2015. This is now complete and is hanging in Friends Meet- ing Room which is adjacent to the museum. It’s only been in place for a few weeks but already visitors are shar- ing with us how much they have been moved by people’s experiences, now retold in words, images and stitches.

It is 25 years since the Tapestry made its home here in Kendal and our work continues to inspire and celebrate how communities can come together in unity and friendship. So please accept our most sincere thanks for your donation and for your support. We really do appreciate it.

Meanwhile Maise Montero writes to say Bath Quakers’ gift will help take forward the work of QPSW:

Your gift is supporting Quaker Peace & Social Witness to tackle the root causes of violence, and to build a more just, peaceful and sustainable world. Here are just a few examples of the work you are enabling to happen:

– Supporting 90 local Quaker meetings to help refugees and asylum seekers in their communities, to challenge racism in all its forms and to campaign for a fairer immigration system.

– Challenging the militarisation of schools, providing peace education resources, and supporting peer mediation – through which children can work together to resolve their own conflicts.

– Supporting Quakers and others to take action on the climate crisis – and working with partners to call for political change to keep fossil fuels in the ground and to invest in a green economy.

– Supporting peacebuilders in the UK and East Africa to take nonviolent action against injustice.

Finally, Joanne Morley at Purple Field Productions has written to say

We are entirely reliant on the generosity of our supporters, and your donation means we are able to continue our work and projects in many different countries in East Africa. Last week, the very first screenings of our cerebral palsy awareness drama Lisilojulikana took place in Tanzania. The pilot screenings were the result of many months of hard work recruiting a local screening and distribution manager, and working alongside partner organisations in the country.

After one screening, a young father spoke to the team about his 3 year old daughter who has cerebral palsy and how his wife was reluctant to seek help for their daughter fearing that her condition was due to witchcraft. As a result of watching the film, the team has been able to put this family in touch with a local disability support organisation who we know will be able to help them. As we continue screenings in Tanzania over the next 12 months, we hope to help many more.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Malawi, we have completed more pilot screenings in Kasangu now that the film has been dubbed into Chichewa, the local language there, and a wider distribution programme will begin soon. Over in Sierra Leone, we continue to work alongside the young filmmakers, Future View Film Group, who will soon begin production on a new film about safe motherhood.

We are so very grateful for your support as it really does mean we are able to continue work on these projects going forward and to offer hope and support to more families struggling with the stigma of disability or ill-health.

Sally adds:

Have you decided how much you can give to Quakers this year? There’s an online form here. Please think about increasing your standing order or single donation to help us meet the needs of our Meeting and helping other organisations such as these in the wider community.