Chairperson's
Report

Turn your back on sin; do something good. Embrace peace - don't let it go away!

Psalm 34

As South Africans we have celebrated our first decade of democracy, reviewing progress and identifying new priorities for community action. We in the Quaker Peace Centre have also been reviewing how best we can play a practical peace-building role in the years ahead. In fact, our 'scenario-planning' started in 2002, when our director and staff got together for a 2-day 'think-tank', to review our results and identify new trends, issues and threats to peace and social justice in our country and continent.

New strategic priorities and programme focus

From that initial think-tank facilitated by our major funder EED (German Protestant Churches Development Fund), several 'strategic peace priorities' for further investigation emerged, to explore how best we could use our years of experience in our changing society, to help build peace and social justice in our young democracy. A thorough process of defining our future programme focus was followed by management, staff and board members - leading to a revised structure of project staff, and redefinition of the core competencies needed for flexibility and cost-effectiveness in the years ahead.

Resource mobilization: challenges and thanks

An ongoing challenge for NGOs in post-apartheid South Africa is fundraising and resource mobilization, and QPC has also felt the pinch in the past year. We are very grateful to our major funder EED, to Quaker groups in the UK, Europe and USA, and to the many other government agencies and foundations, listed under Important People in this Annual Report. We also aim to generate income through peace skills training and community conflict resolution, wherever we identify opportunities.

Farewells

Our strategic focusing, restructuring and belt-tightening inevitably led to downsizing. Sadly, we have had to say farewell to some staff members who have made valued contributions to QPC's peace-building work over the years. Thank you all for your work for peace - and good wishes for your future plans.

Building peace, human rights and social justice in the new South Africa

As a project of the Cape Western Quaker Meeting and on behalf of Quakers throughout Southern Africa, we have faith that God will lead us in His light, to continue His work of peaceful development and capacity building in our country and continent. We give thanks for guidance, staff skills and resources during the past year - and look forward to new community peace challenges in the years ahead.
Special thanks to all our hardworking staff and volunteers, from us all on the Board.

Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika.

Bill Sewell
April 2004