EMES children & young people’s consultation: Brussels, 5-7 July 2019
18 Friends gathered at Quaker House, Brussels for this event facilitated by Annie Janssen (German YM) and Michael Eccles (EMES). The Friends present represented the following meetings: Europe & Middle East Young Friends, German YM, Ireland YM, Netherlands YM, Norway YM and Switzerland YM.
One of the first things we did was agree on terminology for young people of different ages, often all called Young Friends, as follows:- 12-18 year olds – Juniors (although we later created a subcategory of senior-juniors, for those aged 16-18). Sometimes also known as ‘young people’
- 18-35(ish) year olds – Young Adult Friends (YAFs)
We then spent time in country groups mapping (literally as Friends were asked to cut their sheets of paper into an outline of their country!) activities for juniors (see image on the right). There are already a variety of activities going on around the Section and quite a bit of intervisitation already going on; many mainland-European Friends have visited Britain YM, Irish juniors have regularly attended the Yorkshire Holiday School in Britain for many years and there are well-developed plans for a group of Norwegian juniors to visit the German YM Easter camp in 2020.
After lunch we met in two groups – younger and older – at the juniors’ request. Older Friends spent time considering how we can best stay in touch and keep each other informed of events going on around Europe for juniors. One change we agreed was to use the EMES website calendar to advertise activities for Friends of all ages, and we are experimenting with different ways of identifying these events.
After our separate meetings, the juniors brought a proposal for a new event for 16-18 year olds (or senior-juniors). They introduced the proposal, and we ended up with a proposal that we all united behind in a worshipful session after our evening meal. The proposal for the event has the following elements:- for 16-18 year olds
- ideally there will be a minimum number of 12 participants
- the food will be simple and self-catered
- Quaker participants are allowed to bring a non-Quaker Friend
- dates: 28th December 2019 – 2nd January 2020
- everyone attending will be encouraged to travel as environmentally sustainably as possible and staggered arrivals and departures will be built into the programme
- the theme will be about learning about Quakerism
- the gathering will be held at Quakerhaus, Bad Pyrmont, Germany.
We agreed to informally call the gathering Senior-Junior Gathering for now. The gathering will likely come up with an official name when it meets. A planning group was appointed and they had their first meeting on the Saturday evening!
We went on to consider a number of other issues, including a future all-age gathering for EMES, and whether we should have a children’s programme at EMES annual meetings.
If you want to know more about the weekend or any of this work, please get in touch with Michael Eccles, EMES Assistant Secretary, below.
Contact: Michael Eccles
