News

Interested in climate change and how it impacts Friends elsewhere? Also interested in visiting one of the most beautiful countries in the world? You're invited to join us in an online meeting Sunday February 9th, 7 p.m. EST, to learn more about BQEF’s 2020 Quaker Study Tour to Bolivia. 

Dr. Jennie Ratcliffe, author of “Nothing Lowly in the Universe: an Integral Approach to the Ecological Crisis” and “Integrity, Ecology, and Community: The Motion of Love” will join us. Jennie's perspective is that the ecological and climate crisis is, at its heart, a spiritual and moral crisis.  Together we will begin to explore how Quakerism and other wisdom traditions can help us shape our personal and collective responses, in the context of meeting and working with Bolivian Friends.

For information about participating in the meeting via video or audio only, email qst.bolivia@gmail.com.  For a description of the tour, see http://www.bqef.org/?q=node/724
 

“The ecological and climate crisis is, at its heart, a spiritual and moral crisis.”
- Dr. Jennie Ratcliffe

Come to beautiful Bolivia to learn about climate change’s impacts on the land and people of Bolivia, and the adaptations that are occurring to meet these rapid and significant changes. Travel to impacted areas to meet and exchange ideas with local climate change activists and former BQEF students working in areas impacted by climate change, grounded in the work of  U.S. Quaker Dr. Jennie Ratcliffe, author of “Nothing Lowly in the Universe: an Integral Approach to the Ecological Crisis” and “Integrity, Ecology, and Community: The Motion of Love”. 

NOW SEE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR 2020 TOUR! at

http://www.bqef.org/?q=node/724

For many years Quakers from Europe and the U.S. have been visiting our fellow Quakers in the Andes, most recently under the auspices of  Treasures of the Andes with Barbara Flynn.  Now BQEF has undertaken this important role of encouraging links with our Andean Friends, and is sponsoring a tour from July 25th to August 9th, 2018.

This exciting tour includes a lower altitude start in the old capitol of Sucre, a visit to the silver mountain in Potosí, a visit to Quaker sponsored projects in La Paz, Sorata and elsewhere, and finishes with tours of the ancient sites of Tiwanku and the Isla da Sol in Lake Titicaca.

Please circulate the attached flier and registration form to any of your friends who may be interested.

Our high school students in Sorata are delighted to have ready access to the internet at the student residence, for the first time ever.

In recent years their teachers have increasingly assigned reports that require them to do research on the internet.

Because the minimum monthly charge for establishing an internet connection was $300, we were unable to offer internet on the student residence computers. So students had to pay for computer use at one of the local internet cafes, which are often crowded, noisy, and an expense that most could ill afford.

This July, a generous donation from visitors on the Quaker Service and Study Tour equipped 2 of the new student residence computers with affordable internet access via a cell phone simcard. 

Below is the expanded edition of our print story on Anahi Ticona Serrano. We hope you enjoy learning more about this dedicated young Friend.  

Volunteer Orit Netter shares this story of Dia del Padre, the Bolivian Father's Day: