Friends World Committee for Consultation

Friends World Committee for Consultation



4 November 2020 by Faith Biddle

Quaker Conversation #6: What is mine to do? Quaker journeys in AWPS (the Asia West Pacific Section).

About the Quaker Conversation Webinar Series

In its role of providing connective tissue, FWCC is offering a series of 6 Quaker Conversation sessions to any Friends who want to listen and learn and contribute to concerns important to Friends, particularly during this time of grief and reflection and, transformation.

Session 6:

Please join us on November 28 for Quaker Conversation 6: What is mine to do? Quaker journeys in AWPS (the Asia West Pacific Section) where we will hear from Jo Vallentine of Australia Yearly Meeting and Gerry Yokota of Japan Yearly Meeting.

These two remarkable women have lots to say about how being a Quaker has affected their lives, calling them to their work and activism. “I have been determined to take my Quakerism with me wherever I have felt called” says Jo, referring in part to her 8 years in the Australian Senate. Gerry will talk about being a Quaker in Japan and the importance of Quaker diversity, likening it to the spaces in music. Both women have lived into their Quakerism in inspiring ways.

Come, listen, and learn with Friends around the world. Register here.

This is event is in partnerhip with FWCC Asia West Pasific Section.

Corresponding timezones around the world:
London, United Kingdom 07:00 GMT
Paris, France 08:00 CET
Bhopal, India 12:30 IST
Tokyo, Japan 16:00 JST
Melbourne, Australia 18:00 AEDT
Brisbane, Australia 17:00 AEST

About Gerry Yokota has been a member of Osaka Monthly Meeting, Japan Yearly Meeting since 1993. She grew up in a Southern Baptist church in the U.S. and became a Quaker as an adult. In her professional career teaching university English to undergraduates and cultural and literary theory to graduate students, she seeks to plant seeds of awareness of issues of social justice and climate justice through courses focusing on the SDGs.

What Gerry will be exploring in session 6:

As an American who has spent the last three decades of my life in Japan, I am keenly conscious of the need to “feel where the words come from,” as John Woolman said in reference to communicating with Indigenous people he encountered in the American colonies. In this Quaker Conversation, I will talk about how Japan Yearly Meeting sustains my never-ending quest to realize What Is Mine To Do in my professional life as an educator in Japan.

About Jo Vallentine – mother, grandmother, teacher, activist, accidental politician, serial offender, has been connected with Western Australia Regional Meeting since 1972.

What Jo will be exploring in session 6:
Pathway to Quakers (black sheep of family, Catholic boarding school education, finding Meeting with fabulous mentors)
Anti-nuclear campaigning accompanying motherhood, being led to contest a place in the Australian Senate in 1984 (against all odds, winning a seat)
The accidental Senator (being a peoples’ representative through a Quaker lens, simultaneously creating community)
Continuing with activism (including nonviolence trainings, Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects, committing holy obedience and landing in gaol, round Australia Pilgrimage with Chernobyl survivors connecting with indigenous groups, helping to establish Alternatives to Violence Project in Western Australia
Current contributions (Extinction Rebellion grandparents’ group, lobbying for de-militarisation which could fund all of U.N.s seventeen Sustainable Development goals)

Additional Event Details:
This event will be held in English. If you need additional interpretation or assistance, please contact faithb@fwcc.world with the subject line ‘interpretation request’.
This event will be hosted online. Once you register on Eventbrite, you will get a link to the zoom meeting where this event will be hosted.

REGISTER FOR QUAKER CONVERSATION 6 HERE.CategoriesEventsPost navigation
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