tEAm news #64 | 10.11.21
Remembrance Day tomorrow marks another year of peacetime in our country. Recent months of restriction and lockdown remind us how indebted we are to those who gave their lives to provide us with the freedoms we enjoy today.
“Heroism doesn’t always happen in a burst of glory.
Sometimes small triumphs and large hearts change the course of history. ”
Dates
MOMENT OF PRAYER - Mondays 9-9:15: a moment to pause, prayer, light candles for our work & team. All welcome!
Link here (Meeting ID: 708 452 7633 Passcode: empathy)15.11.21: EA Board meeting
4.12.21 Christmas Fair: Skinners Kent Academy
5.12.21 Christmas Fair: Skinners Kent Academy Primary School
Christmas campaign on The Empathy Store - involving a few new products! (Stars and Syrian Veggie cook book)
TBC - a get-together pre Christmas
Updates from team members at COP26
One of the highlights of our time here so far has been joining with the Young Christian’s Climate Network on the last leg of their 1200 mile journey from the site of the G7 talks in Carbis Bay to COP 26 here in Glasgow. It was so inspiring to be with some of the young people who demonstrated such passion and commitment to the poor whose lives and livelihoods are being devastated by climate change. As we joined pilgrimages from Germany, Poland, Spain and Switzerland at Glasgow Green and marched to the rally in George Square through the sunshine and rain a beautiful rainbow appeared, a visible sign of God’s covenant with the earth. The YCCN pilgrimage featured on the One Show on Monday night, although their petition, pictured below, to the Government wasn’t mentioned. We hope that a recorded interview with BBC Scotland enabled their voices to be heard.
On a prayer walk around Glasgow led by the head of Tearfund’s Scottish team we arrived at the clock tower in the photograph at exactly one minute to 12. Midday not midnight but it seemed prophetic nevertheless. The next afternoon there was an opportunity to hear Bishop Graham Usher, the C.of E.’s lead bishop on the environment and Tearfund’s Ruth Valerio speak on the hope that a series of environmental programmes in churches around the country shortlisted for a Church Times award gave them. A message endorsed by Richard Black, former BBC science correspondent and senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. This was also an opportunity to catch up with Caroline Pomeroy, of Climate Stewards, our partner in ‘The High Life’.
Bill McKibbin, 350.org, spoke at Glasgow University on Wednesday on whether there was a role for older people and faith communities in addressing the climate emergency? The focus here in Glasgow has been very much on the message of the young and indigenous communities. Faith communities, including over 2 billion Christians McKibben argued, have a vital role as they believe and practice self restraint. He had a more challenging message for older people who he suggested have nothing to lose by engaging in non violent civil disobedience, unlike the young!
We have certainly seen the church at work in Glasgow in calling and praying for justice to be done to the poor and to indigenous communities. A member of our group works for Operation Noah and was celebrating the decision last Saturday of the Diocese of Norwich to divest from funding fossil fuels. Another member working for the Anglican Alliance recounted a meeting she had attended where their delegate Archbishop Julio Murray Thompson met John Murton, UK envoy to the COP, one of Alok Sharma’s core team. They discussed the help the Alliance was able to give in access to senior church leaders in the global south. Later in the week the Head of Training at Tearfund’s Indian partner Eficor, Kuki Rokhum, spoke very movingly about the poor in India who live lightly but pay heavily for the changes taking place in the climate.
It was great to catch up with Sandy at an event Reboot the Future were holding with EcoCiv. We joined a small audience for a recorded facilitated conversation between 3 guests of RtB, showcasing the work RtF had been doing during lockdown in facilitating conversations on shared values between different interest groups who rarely get to talk with each other. The conversation on Thursday moved on from shared values to how they thought the climate emergency could be addressed and what hope they had. It was good to be reacquainted with RtF’s founder Kim Polman who featured in a The Poverty Trap (TPT) sim at Sevenoaks School some years ago.
We had dinner that evening with representatives of our hosts here in Glasgow, Focolare. Great interest was shown once again in The High Life (THL). On to the March with Fridays for Future. Inspirational to see so many young people taking part on a sunny day in Glasgow. Unlike the rain and blustery wind on the COP 26 March the next day! We joined with 100,000 others and many more in London, Cardiff and around the globe walking in the faith block to call for climate justice. Our final event in Glasgow was joining the packed COP26 ecumenical service at St Mungo’s Cathedral on Sunday.
As the world leaders departed last Tuesday the serious negotiations got underway and the proof of their success will depend on how far they are able to meet the demands of the increasingly vocal activists for action not talk. We will be continuing to pray that they do.
MEET THE INTERNS!
OTHER UPDATES
Tunbridge Wells Puppetry Festival School Workshops didn’t come through (there were no sign ups). The festival have expressed a desire to still do something. We are saddened but it does seem that groups going into schools are having a harder time.
More downloads of “The High Life” (we’re up to 26) with some choosing to offset too!
An interesting idea: We sounded out an idea with one of our schools about what 'the students could do next following a simulation'. We suggested the school could buy a number of 'send a gift’ as an act of empathy in advance. This would gives us a way to encourage (and track) students sending gifts to people with a message of care. They liked the idea and even suggested that we should offer 'a package' that a school could subscribe to which offers: a sim, an assembly, even an empathy conference that brings together other schools who have also taken part to hear about what other students and schools have done following a sim.
Christmas Fairs: we’ve had a few invitations: Skinners Kent Academy and Skinners Kent Academy Primary… given all the loss of income we’ve had these look to be some solid opportunities! If you can help - we’d LOVE to have a few bodies helping out (get in touch with Ben!)… we already have Cora (EA alumni’s Angie Adam’s daughter) keen to help at her primary school!
