International Fellowship of Reconciliation
Blas García Noriega - Vice president The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) is a non-governmental organization founded in 1914 in response to the horrors of war in Europe.
[3][4] After coming into his home country, Hodgkins invited his Quaker – and often socialist – friends, such as Kees Boeke, to organize a conference in Cambridge in 1915, in which the "Fellowship of Reconciliation" (FOR England) was established.
In their first declaration, the conferees said that they want to follow the revolutionary ideals of Christ in order to achieve a Christian revolution that is based on love and nonviolence.
Immediately after Bilthoven IFOR appointed travelling secretaries such as John Nevin Sayre, André Trocmé, Muriel Lester, Henri Rose and Percy Bartlett.
[13] Many others followed and, in such a tense historical moment, IFOR members discussed about the necessity of disarmament and of a new role of Churches, asking clergymen to make a strong stand against the idea of "righteous wars".
"Ambassadors of Reconciliation", such as George Lansbury, Muriel Lester and Anne Seesholtz, visited many world leaders, including Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Leon Blum and Franklin D Roosevelt.
Muriel Lester, English social worker, served as IFOR travelling secretary throughout the world, helping to establish its work in many countries.
She met Mahatma Gandhi, first in London when, in 1931, he spent some time at Kingsley Hall, a community center with educational, social and recreational purposes, run by her and her sister Doris, and then in India when she went with him in Bihar on his anti-untouchability tour during 1934.
IFOR's members, especially in America tried by inter-church mediation to find ways of ending the war, to help conscientious objectors, and struggled against internment of Japanese Americans.
[14] In France, IFOR members André and Magda Trocmé, with the help of the villagers of le Chambon sur Lignon, saved the lives of thousands of Jews escaping the Holocaust.
IFOR branches and affiliates in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East grew consistently also thanks to the work of Jean Goss and Hildegard Goss-Mayr from Paris and Vienna, three times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
IFOR assists groups and individuals to find ways in which they can transform conflicts into positive and growth oriented interactions that involve dialogue and lead to reconciliation.
During their annual meeting, European members from different branches of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation issued the Declaration of Prali,[21] in occasion of the Global day of Action on Military Spending,[22] 17 April 2012.
Gender justice means that women and men can equally contribute to and benefit from peace building, non-violent conflict resolution and reconciliation.
IFOR maintains permanent representatives at the United Nations (UN) in New York, Geneva, Vienna and Paris (UNESCO) who regularly participate in conferences and meetings of UN bodies, providing testimony and expertise from different regional perspectives, promoting non-violent alternatives in the fields of human rights, development, and disarmament.
