Friends in deed
By Heather Saville
Australia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Inc., 2009
337 pages, $24.95 plus postage (pb)
Friends in deed traces the 50-year history of Quaker Service Australia. Since 1959 QSA, — as it's been known since 1987 — has undertaken an impressive range of aid and development programs and projects around the world including in Australia.
Just one example of QSA's work is in Vietnam. The book details a variety of humanitarian initiatives spanning over 30 years there. It includes the establishment of a prosthetics and rehabilitation hospital in Quang Nqai, a valuable asset to the people of Vietnam. The hosptial was eventually handed over to the reunified government in the late 1970s.
Some of QSA's most significant achievements involved joint projects with VACVINA, an independent organisation formed by six elderly men in 1986. VACVINA is an acronym derived from the essential elements of a food gardening system that had been practised over centuries in Vietnam, but had been forgotten during the years of war.
With QSA's assistance VACVINA grew to having branches in 30 of the country's 44 provinces and became the defacto department of horticulture. VACVINA would train local communities in organic and sustainable agriculture including permaculture. It also set up demonstration food farms in schools that, in addition to training, would provide extra food for malnourished students.
One VACVINA project, undertaken with three ethnic tribal groups, achieved impressive results. Before the project began, all three communities suffered inadequate levels of nutrition for most of the year. Four years later 90% of the people were able to meet all their food needs all of the time, and the remaining 10% experienced only a degree of pre-harvest hunger.
These projects in Vietnam were especially important in the broader political context. Reconstruction and development was extremely difficult in a country considered to be an "enemy state" by the United States until 1995. Australia too, suspended bilateral aid to Vietnam in 1979 under the Fraser government.
Other QSA projects include medical clinics and demonstration farms in India, education programs to combat HIV/AIDS in Cambodia and Africa, English language programs in Cambodia, organic farming training and permaculture in Africa, South-East Asia and among Aboriginal communities in Australia, assistance with infrastructure and more.
The history is refreshing for a number of reasons. The Quakers, despite being a religious group, don't believe proselytising activities should be tied to aid programs. This is a welcome departure from other faith-based groups who tie assistance to religious conversion.
And despite being a non-government organisation (NGO), they don't waste precious aid funding on exorbitant salaries to bureaucrats sitting in air-conditioned offices. They are largely a dedicated group of volunteers on a shoestring budget, something most activist and progressive groups could relate to.
The criteria for QSA funding reflects the "no strings attached" approach.
Programs and projects must: produce essential goods, have the ability to operate independently, make use of predominantly local raw materials, employ women workers and encourage their participation in decision making.
There's no doubt socialists have had their fair share of run-ins with religious organisations and NGOs in the past. But Friends in deed shows this particular group is certainly an active partner in the common struggle for a more socially just and ecologically sustainable world.
For more information or to purchase Friends in deed visit www.qsa.org.au