David Bucura and Rachel Bugenimana – Friends Peace Teams and Africa Great Lakes Initiative
David Bucura and Rachel Bugenimana joined the Vancouver Monthly Meeting on World Quaker Day (05-Oct-2025) to talk about their work with the African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI).
The African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) strengthens, supports, and promotes peace activities at the grassroots level in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda). AGLI responds to requests from local religious and non-governmental organizations that focus on conflict management, peace building, trauma healing, and reconciliation. AGLI sponsors Peace Teams composed of members from local partners and the international community. Friends Peace Teams is a Spirit-led organization working to develop long-term relationships with communities in conflict around the world to create programs for peace building, healing and reconciliation.
David is the Coordinator of the African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) of the Friends Peace Teams. He and his wife Rachel Bugenimana live in Kigali, Rwanda. David has served as General Secretary and General Superintendent of Rwanda Yearly Meeting. He was the first director of Peace House, a Quaker-inspired center for interfaith and interethnic reconciliation started the year after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
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Linda Taffs – The Occupation Hurts the Occupier and the Occupied
On 11-Mar-2025 Vancouver Island Quaker Linda Taffs gave the following talk at the Vancouver Quakers meeting house.
In November 2024, Linda Taffs participated in a witness pilgrimage to the occupied West Bank and southern Israel organized by the Canadian Friends of Sabeel, an ecumenical Palestinian liberation theology centre in Jerusalem. In her talk “The Occupation Hurts the Occupier and the Occupied” she describes what she saw during her pilgrimage.
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