The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Ireland
Recent Irish Quaker service and support work
Bloomfield - 180 years of caring
Ulster Quaker Service Committee
This Committee concentrates its efforts in two areas:
- The Monica Barritt Visitors Centre at Maghaberry Prison provides a variety of services for those visiting members of their families in prison.
- Quaker Cottage, perched on Black Mountain 600 feet above sea level with wonderful views over Belfast, is a family day care centre and provides a range of programmes for families from both communities together that are referred through social workers and primary health care workers. In addition there are separate programmes for children/young people who are non-attenders at school.
Quaker Cottage, Belfast. A meeting point for members of all communities
Dublin Quaker Service Committee
Jointly with St Vincent de Paul initiated, set up, and is involved in the organisation of Prison Visitors Centres at Mountjoy, St. Patrick's & Cloverhill.See also the Putting Faith into Action page.
Irish Quaker Faith in Action supports the work of Friends and others in many parts of the world. In 2002 grant aid amounted to €70,000.
Doreen Dowd, an Irish Quaker who worked as a flying doctor in Lesotho which was her base.
Projects have included:-
- Building and equipping a Health Centre in a very poor area of Bolivia
- Supporting agricultural education and work to prevent the spread of AIDs in Burkina Faso (West Africa)
- Helping pay students' fees at Friends School, Ramallah, Palestine
- Giving support to a Quaker who is working with poor Mexicans who live on and beside the tip-heads in Mexico City
- Helping a Quaker flying doctor, and the hospital which is her base in Lesotho, where the problem of AIDs orphans is now huge
- Giving grant aid to a girls secondary school in Sohagpur, central India
- Grant aiding the "Alternatives to Violence Project South Africa" based in Johannesburg which is having significant success in changing attitudes to violence among the youth of South Africa and surrounding countries
- Providing a number of special beds for a hospital in the Gaza strip of Palestine
- Assisting an agricultural education project in Zimbabwe
- Other projects in Ireland
See also the Putting Faith into Action page.
NB The words 'Friend' and 'Quaker' are interchangeable.