QPSANZ - Quaker Peace and Service Aotearoa/New Zealand

Contact address and phone number for QPSANZ:

215 Harewood Rd, Christchurch 8053, New Zealand

Contact Phone (03) 980 4884

 

QPSANZ is expected to further Friends' Peace Testimony, both in its negative side - opposition to war and violence - and in its positive promotion of human cooperation. At present most energies go into the positive side: for aid and development projects with overseas partners - see photos below.

But we have not forgotten the traditional "Peace Movement" opposition to all war, militarism, weapons and preparation for war. In 2009 our commitment to nuclear disarmament saw us grant the Loxley Award to Alyn Ware, the Wellington-based campaigner for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, and write to all MPs on this matter. One of our members is active in the work against uranium weapons (a ban in NZ would add momentum to international moves).

 

 

QPSANZ's "Local Peace Grants" try to boost the morale and the finances of small groups in NZ seeking to strengthen peace, cooperation and understanding, often on the grassroots level (inspired by the local/global thinking of Maggie Glover, the English-born peace artist who has settled here).

 

Local Peace Grants application forms can be found below, the maximum per grant is $500. Applications close on 30th April and 31st October. The grant is open to all.

 

 

Peaceful Relationships in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The 2010 Loxley Award for peace projects has been granted to Anna Parker. Based in Dunedin, Anna is a relatively young woman of Pakeha and Maori ancestry. Yet her impressive credentials include an internship with WILPF in Geneva, community development work in Bougainville and Dunedin, and several years tutoring in Peace Studies at Canterbury.

Anna's project is to do original research on the Treaty of Waitangi today, seeking to "explore the influence of Te Tiriti on peace-building and relationship-building within organisations." Central to the project will be a series of interviews with key informants about how various understandings of Te Tiriti are informing individual practice and group process and assisting in cooperative relationships. (One can hardly claim that the mainstream media are informing us very well about positive Treaty-based models).

Anna's work will be written up as an MA thesis for the new National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Otago University. As such, it will include a theoretical part reflecting on issues of language and power. Yet Anna can certainly be called a peace practitioner. The QPSANZ committee shares her hopes that her project will "strengthen New Zealand's collective peace story" and "contribute to a small but growing body of work that explores the unique lessons of our own nation."

 

Tanya Newman is the Education Coordinator for Kotare Trust Research and Education for Social Change in Aotearoa New Zealand.   Kotare is a sister organisation of The Change Agency.   Her role at Kotare includes organising, designing and facilitating workshops to help strengthen the work of people who are working for social, environmental and treaty justice.   Tanya's background is in working for feminist empowerment based organisations such as women's refuge and rape crisis.   Tanya is passionate about social movement education and is very much looking forward to learning from George Lakey about how to do transformational work with groups.   She is very grateful to the QPSANZ for making this possible and looks forward to sharing her learnings on her return from the United States.

Tanya Newman, Education Coordinator, Kotare Trust, www.kotare.org.nz

2012 - Jen Margaret

The QPSANZ administered Loxley Award for 2012 has been given to Jen Margaret from Wellington. Jen has an extensive background in social justice work and Treaty relations in Aotearoa/NZ. She will use the funding to research and publish an e-book which will document stories of non-indigenous people working as allies in support of the justice struggles of indigenous peoples in Aotearoa and Australia. While people have been undertaking this work for many years there is little documentation of approaches and few written resources to support people who work as allies. In 2010 Jen was awarded a Churchill Fellowship and the Loxley funds will allow her to consider the concepts she explored in North America in relation to allies in Australia and Aotearoa/NZ.  Her plan is to interview six people or small groups in Australia and Aotearoa/NZ who work as allies. They will represent diversity in location, the work they do and the organisations they work for. After transcription of the audio recordings, the cases will be published in an e-book. The audio recordings will be kept as a historical record. Jen is well qualified and experienced to undertake this work. 

 

 

Thomas is a social justice researcher specialising in news media and global crises communication.  His 2013 Loxley project examines news coverage of the global HIV/AIDS medicines access crisis, in particular looking at how transnational civil society organisations helped to define and publicise the impact of patent protection on global medicines access.  Thomas has researched this issue for several years as part of a PhD thesis.  His project now is to update the research to the present day, using new interviews with transnational civil society medicines access campaigners to better identify effective strategies for communicating social justice concerns in the mainstream news media. 

Thomas has a background in media education, having taught in media and communication departments at Massey University and Victoria University of Wellington.  He also researches and writes about indigenous education initiatives in Canadian Yukon First Nations.  Thomas believes firmly in the importance of progressive social justice and peace research, and is very grateful to QPSANZ for making his, and other projects, possible.  Thomas’ Loxley project will be published as a book, to be included in the Peter Lang series: “Global Crises and the Media.”

 

For further info on the Loxley Award, download the file: Loxley_Awards_Information.doc [33KB]

 

Application forms for the Loxley Award are available from: qpsanz@quaker.org.nz