Congratulations to South Belfast Quaker Meeting on receiving an Eco-Congregation Ireland award on Sunday 7th December … only days after winning a Green Initiative Award in Belfast City Council’s Brighter Belfast Awards!
The meeting is dedicated to promoting an environmental ethos and members carry this out both in the upkeep of their meeting house and in their everyday lives. They promote recycling and composting and the use of energy-saving light bulbs and eco-friendly cleaning materials.
A Traidcraft stall is set up on the first Sunday of each month where members can purchase a wide range of Fairtrade products. Fruit trees have been planted in the grounds and the children grow vegetables.
Often during worship, which in the Quaker tradition is based on silence and stillness with the opportunity for anyone present to make a contribution if they feel moved to do so, someone will draw attention to an aspect of environmental practice or eco injustice, or will challenge worshipers to make a lifestyle change.
Following meeting for worship on 7th December, which focused on the responsibility of Christians to care for the earth, members of the meeting’s eco group were presented with an Eco-Congregation award.
Presenting the award and congratulating the eco group on their efforts to bring an appreciation of environmental matters into all aspects of the meeting’s life and work, Joe Furphy, ECI’s Presbyterian representative, said: “In particular you have developed your premises in an environmentally-friendly manner and incorporated environmental teaching material into the children’s programme. It is good to see that you are now keen to develop closer ties with other local churches and fellowships that are similarly environmentally aware.”
On receiving the award, Tony Weekes, a member of South Belfast Meeting’s eco group, said: “In completing the application for an Eco-Congregation award, we were pleasantly surprised to see how many of the requirements were already part of our Meeting’s way of thinking and working. Receiving the award is a reminder to us to reflect on how all things are connected: the environmental, the social, the economic and the political.”
Kerry Nicholson, also a member of the eco group, said: “We are really honoured and pleased to have won this award. A lot of what we have done to get this award has been part of who we are and what we do anyway. We have been recycling, composting, turning off lights etc. for a while, but receiving this award somewhat confirms that these many small, individual, and often unrelated, jobs are worthwhile doing, as together they are part of a bigger, better way of being and doing. We hope that getting this award will serve as an encouragement to other meetings and faith communities – that they too can achieve a lot by taking small steps.
“Quaker Advices & Queries encourage us as follows: ‘We do not own the world, and its riches are not ours to dispose of at will. Show a loving consideration for all creatures, and seek to maintain the beauty and variety of the world. Work to ensure that our increasing power over nature is used responsibly, with reverence for life. Rejoice in the splendour of God’s continuing creation.” Advices and Queries, 1994, No.42.”
To find out more about the eco initiatives undertaken by South Belfast Quakers, click here.