Julie Harlow, educator and a founder of Friends House in Moscow, will make a Zoom presentation at 9:45 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, to the Newtown Quaker Meeting adult class on Court Street (newtownfriendsmeeting.org).
Harlow began working toward the fulfillment of her vision of a Quaker presence in Russia immediately after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. Active with the international governing board of Friends House Moscow since its inception, she will share the challenges, disappointments, and successes from its beginnings up to the current program.
She also speaks knowledgeably about current conditions in Russia based on research and personal experience traveling and leading tours to the U.S.S.R. from 1984 through 1991.
Friends House Moscow (FHM), a Quaker center in Russia, provides a Quaker presence and nurtures seekers throughout Russia, Ukraine and beyond; supports programs promoting peace, conflict resolution and justice; helps orphans, refugees, victims of domestic violence, disabled children, conscientious objectors to war, teachers of nonviolence and translates Quaker materials into the Russian language.
Harlow speaks with great empathy and knowledge about the general outlook of the Russian people, whose lives have been constricted by poverty, government corruption, and lawlessness, all of which have worsened dramatically since the fall of the Soviet Union.
She also speaks with equal empathy about the outlook of contemporary Ukrainians, whose culture has been forcibly suppressed and “Russified” for years.
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