40 Years of NJPN - Young People's view

Eleanor and Anna Marshall
May 19th, 2018

Anna and Eleanor Marshall

The following talk was give at the 40th anniversary celebration in London on 12 May of the National Justice and Peace Network (NJPN).

Eleanor: I'm Eleanor aged 12 and this is Anna aged 14. We are sisters and we're members of the NJPN. We've been members for 5 years and have been going to the National Justice and Peace conference too. This is where we started to get inspired to get involved. This is where I started making things I call pockets for peace after meeting Pat Gaffney and deciding to raise money for Pax Christi. Thank you, Pat for encouraging me. Also, it's through the conference that we learnt about toilet twinning, a charity that twins toilets and teaches about the importance of sanitation.

Anna: Toilet Twinning was one of our workshops. We took this back to our parish. We toilet twinned our parish. We took it to our schools and we toilet twinned our schools. We took it to our local MP and town council and now our town is a toilet twinned town. This is part of why a member of our parish, Anne Peacey, who has supported us in everything we do, nominated us for the Million Minutes Dorothy Day award. I was lucky enough to win the award, and this only made me want to do more.

Eleanor: The conference is a place we can do more. We can learn from others and always receive great support. Our family is a justice and peace family, but, because of the NJPN, we feel like we are part of a much bigger family. We feel appreciated and appreciate everyone in the NJPN. We've been given so many opportunities. One year, we were invited to speak at the conference. This has given us great confidence for the future and helped us with public speaking and presenting ideas.

Anna: It's because of this that we now have a charity group at school. We have focused on making winter packs for the homeless, supported CAFOD campaigns and raised money for the Good Shepherd appeal in our diocese. We have recently become an SVP group and on Thursday, I was elected president whilst Eleanor was elected communications officer. We are always trying to find ways of spreading Justice and Peace.

Eleanor: Last Monday, we did the CAFOD 'share the journey' sponsored walk and added 24 miles to the total in Sheffield. We often think about looking outwards at our world. This is what Justice and Peace has taught us to do. We think the world is beautiful and we're always trying to find a way we can make it a better place.

Anna: The NJPN helps us remember what the right thing to do is. I have been reading Pope Francis's Gaudete et Exsultate and this reminds me of what the NJPN does: "Let us listen once more to Jesus... let us allow his words to unsettle us, to challenge us and to demand a real change in the way we live."

Eleanor: I know one of Pope Francis's quotes as well. He says, 'we should not be afraid to be challenged by the idealism of the young'. In other words, listen to us because we all share this world and we want to help.