World Ministries Committee

by Susan Weisfeld
Scarsdale Meeting

The World Ministries Committee (WMC) is a wonderful and unique committee in that it provides a means whereby individual NYYM Friends and meetings can bring “Quaker love to the wider world.” This is the committee’s ministry: to make possible leadings and projects which promote peace, healing and material help for those who need support worldwide.

The WMC has been an active part of the NYYM since 1889. Although WMC is a grant-funding committee, it is more than just a distribution point of money. It makes possible new books delivered to a rural school for orphaned children in Kenya; trauma healing workshops in the poorest areas of Central America; technical scholarships for Bolivian Aymara Quaker teenagers; maternal health instruction for new mothers in East Africa; a new roof for an old crumbling meetinghouse in Cuba which is being converted into an “Institute of Peace”; teacher training for young Indonesian women; creating a “cultures of peace” project in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine, and Chechnya; partnering with Right Sharing World Resource organizations in Sierra Leone to prevent further spread of Ebola; supporting a Friends United Meeting initiative in Belize City to combat human trafficking; secondary school scholarships for three rural tribal African girls who otherwise would have been forced to marry very young and can now go on to train to be teachers; translation of Faith and Practice into Tagalog (Filipino); Quaker books for a Ramallah school; and so much more, year after year. This work is possible thanks to the bequests of Friends whose objective was that their legacy be to insure this wonderful ministry, and thanks to Friends who contribute to the Sharing Fund so that this ministry can continue.

We who serve on this committee are grateful to have the opportunity to help enable the projects Friends choose to accomplish. The committee invites applications at any time of the year. The guidelines for grants are on the NYYM website at
nyym.org/committee/world-ministries-committee and the form is easy to download.

One can say that the WMC is at the heart of what defines Quakers. Creating a path to peace and bringing Quaker love to the wider world is both a mission for the committee and a serious charge to its members who evaluate each grant proposal. As long as NYYM Friends are led to bring peace and love to the wider world, the World Ministries Committee will continue to try to give support within its means, in the spirit of those Friends who make this committee possible.

—The committee: Edward Doty, David Gerhan, Martha Gurvich, David Herendeen, Arlene Reduto, Lisa Stewart, Susan Weisfeld.