90 Years of Service
Canadian Friends Service Committee
90 Years of Friends making this work possible
Lana Robinson
Clerk of Canadian Friends Service Committee
My first experience with Canadian Friends Service Committee was in the summer of 2010 when I was able to serve my university internship with the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, and the Quaker International Affairs program of CFSC in Ottawa. I had previously heard talks by CFSC staff and they were the inspiration behind seeking to do my internship program with QUNO and QIAP, and these opportunities were facilitated through CFSC
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Following graduation in 2011, I was nominated to serve on the Indigenous Rights Committee of CFSC, and soon found myself taking on the role of Recording Clerk as well. In addition to those roles, in the last nine years I have served as Personnel Clerk and as Clerk of CFSC.
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What I appreciate most about the time I have spent with CFSC is the way my involvement has inspired me to learn more: more about Friends and our history, more about Indigenous rights, peacebuilding and the criminal justice system in Canada, more about the work Friends do in other places and with other groups. I have learned some of this as part of the work that I have been involved with while on the committee, but even more so in the ways I have become engaged with that work beyond those roles. I have been inspired to take Indigenous language and history courses, attend workshops and panel discussions on the justice system, and advocate for peace in ways I would not have been led to do previous to my involvement with CFSC. I have been given opportunities to travel and reflect deeply on what it means to be Quaker in a world that desperately needs a prophetic voice for peace and justice, and have been able to share those reflections with others in new ways.
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As CFSC celebrates 90 years of work for justice and peace on behalf of Friends in Canada, we can all be inspired to look deeper within ourselves to find out what kind of service feeds our souls, and use that to attend to the hunger for justice and peace that we see in the world around us, and feel deep within us. Thank you to all the staff and volunteers who have served with CFSC over the last 90 years!
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