Guncha Annageldieva is a youth advocate from Turkmenistan. She is pursuing her Bachelor degree in Sociology.
Guncha has been actively involved in volunteering work since her childhood and strongly believes in power of volunteering. YPEER Network plays a crucial role in her life. Currently, she works as International Coordinator in charge of Communication of YPEER Network.
Maruee Pahuja is a Visual Artist, Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy Practitioner and an Arts-Informed Ecotherapy Practitioner. She is currently working as an Ocularist and Specialty Contact Lens Consultant at Natasha Eye Care and Research Centre and is the creative trainings co-lead for People Beyond Borders. Maruee is driven by the curiosity to find intersections in the fields of arts and science. She loves gardening and is often found sailing on the ship of her imagination.
Batol Gholami has always been passionate about how to become a charismatic leader. When she was a child in her village in Baghlan, she saw her father, who was her role model in leadership, inspiring her to recognize the importance of leadership skills. Since childhood, she has explored how it is possible for a young woman to become more influential in her own life. As Afghan women have suffered for ages, Batool has stood up to share their voices worldwide.
Shrouk Gamal is a CEO and Founder of Yellow vs Blue initiative, a project manager/consultant with Equip. She is also a Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange certified facilitator, and works as a cross-culture dialogue facilitator with Soliya. Shrouk facilitates with NOW in Switzerland the Changemakers reflection groups. She is also a mentor with MCW Global in New York, US and a former Global-side mentor with HLAB in Japan.
Tanaka Mhunduru is a young man from Zimbabwe who is an active advocate for peace building and social change in the world. Tanaka has been involved with the Caux Peace and Leadership Programme for three years and he is always looking for ways to be of service to his community and the world. Since attending the CPLP in 2017, Tanaka has seen the power of global collaboration and has gained a much deeper respect for diversity and creativity when it comes to approaching the issues we see today in the world.
Rayan Swar is senior undergraduate student of Political science and international relations department , at Soran university. Has excellent background in leadership and debating, Currently in association with different international hubs and forums as well as being a fellow at NDI leadership program (Hassa shabab) in Iraq.
Cooking for hundreds of people takes skill and courage at the best of times – and all the more so when your team speaks several languages and includes people who have rarely cooked before.
For most of the Caux conference centre’s existence, the meals have been cooked by conference participants, led by intrepid and experienced head cooks, who came from all over the world. These women – and some men – were volunteers, who left jobs and other commitments to spend summer after summer at Caux. Three of them ⎼ Alison Wetterfors, Debora Kupferschmidt and Liz Weeks ⎼ appear in the photo above.
Alison Wetterfors, a gifted Scottish singer who took part in a number of Moral Re-Armament (now Initiatives of Change) productions, was one of them. She writes:
I am of course totally biased, but there is no doubt in my mind that by far the best place to take part in the volunteer work at Caux was the kitchen. I worked there in the summer for over 25 years in the 70s, 80s and 90s, many of them as a head cook.
To come to the kitchen after an intense plenary meeting was the perfect contrast, and many friendships were made and discussions had as one stirred the soup or fried the fish. It gave the perfect chance to translate theories about a better world into practice.
Many friendships were made and discussions had as one stirred the soup or fried the fish. It gave the perfect chance to translate theories about a better world into practice.
Many memories come to mind. The conversation between a British navy commander and an Argentinian shortly after the Falklands war, as they mashed the potatoes. The animated discussion between two Russian journalists as numerous omelettes were made, and the quiet to and fro between a retired ambassador and an African businessman as they chopped piles of parsley at a very slow pace. The challenge and fun of working with 10 or 15 other people to produce a meal for 500 was both satisfying and creative.
These moments were far outweighed by the achievements of a group of people, a good number of whom had never in their lives worked together with others to produce a meal for such numbers.
And then there were the times when it could be a little too exciting! The large amount of whipped cream left a moment too long in the mixer transformed in a flash into butter. The swoosh of many litres of egg mixture disappearing down a drain as someone lost control of a machine – and the sinking feeling that accompanied it. The frantic search for the tip of a large knife lost in ice cream for several hundred people – it was found!
These moments were far outweighed by the achievements of a group of people, a good number of whom had never in their lives worked together with others to produce a meal for such numbers.
No account of the kitchen operation would be complete without mentioning the Economat and vegetable teams. The former ordered all the food, and with their considerable expertise and support kept the whole show on the road. The vegetable team, starting very early, cut, chopped, peeled and washed, filling baskets full of salad, broccoli, or whatever else was on the menu that day. It goes without saying how important these teams were for the kitchen.
And so finally, in case you are wondering, we come to a certain skeleton. The discovery that the theatre was using one in a play was irresistible! It was duly ‘borrowed’ one evening, and, clad in a cook’s apron with parsley in its teeth, was draped over the largest soup pot in the hope of giving the night watch or any other passer-by a fright.
History doesn’t recall the effect it had in the midnight hours, but it had to be removed very quickly the next morning, as a group of Asian diplomats from Geneva toured the kitchen.
I still wonder what their reactions would have been to the contents of the soup in Caux if they had come round the corner a moment sooner!
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Listen to one of Alison's songs: Born on the Wind (1975)
Watch Alison perform a solo (6"6') and a Scottish dance (14"4') in Anything to Declare? (ATD) in Hong Kong
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This story is part of our series 75 Years of Stories about individuals who found new direction and inspiration through Caux, one for each year from 1946 to 2021. If you know a story appropriate for this series, please do pass on your ideas by email to John Bond or Yara Zhgeib. If you would like to know more about the early years of Initiatives of Change and the conference centre in Caux please click here and visit the platform For A New World.
When we launched the 75 Years of Stories series in February 2021 about 75 years of encounters at the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Caux, we had no idea what an adventure we had embarked o...
As our series of 75 stories for 75 years of the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Caux draws to an end, the President of Initiatives of Change Switzerland, Christine Beerli, and its two Co-Di...
In 2020, the Caux Forum went online in response to the pandemic. Its organizers found that this made Caux accessible to people all over the world who could not have taken part in normal circumstances....
During World War II, the Caux Palace (later the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Switerland) provided a refuge for Jews fleeing the Shoah. Over the years, some of them – or their descendants...
When Tunisian economics graduate Wael Boubaker joined the Caux Peace and Leadership Programme (CPLP) in 2018, he expected a conference which would look good on his CV, and some beautiful scenery. Inst...
Tanaka Mhunduru from Zimbabwe is one of the organizers of the Caux Peace and Leadership Programme (CPLP), a one-month programme for young people from around the world. He first took part in 2017....
The Winter Gathering of 2016 was a special experience for Diana Damsa – not just because she experienced Caux in winter, but also because, for the first time in eight years, she had no responsibilitie...
Lisbeth Lasserre came from Winterthur, where her grandparents, Hedy and Arthur Hahnloser, had built up a private collection of art at their home, Villa Flora. Amongst their artist friends were Bonnard...
Catherine Guisan is Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota, USA. She has written two books on the ethical foundations of European integration. In 2014 she spoke at Caux’s first se...
2013 saw the first full-length Caux Dialogues on Land and Security (CDLS). These events, which took place at the Caux Conference and Seminar Centre, focus on the links between sustainable land managem...
When Merel Rumping from the Netherlands first visited Caux in 2012, she had a goal in mind – ‘to explore how I could contribute to a more just world through my professional activities’....
For many years, Lucette Schneider from Switzerland organized the team which gathered in the early mornings to wash, peel and chop vegetables for the kitchens of the Caux conference centre. ...
Mohan Bhagwandas is all too aware of his carbon footprint. In the 13 years from 2006 to 2019, he flew 17 times from his home city of Melbourne, Australia, to Switzerland to take part in the Caux confe...
25 distinguished Indians and Pakistanis came to Caux in 2009 with the aim of building bridges between their countries. The man who initiated the gathering was Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Ga...
2008 saw the launch of an unusual course on Islam’s approach to peacemaking for young Muslims and non-Muslims, devised by Imam Ajmal Masroor from the UK. The course’s coordinator, Peter Riddell, descr...
The West Indian cricketer Conrad Hunte was often at the conference centre in Caux in the years following his retirement from first class cricket in 1967. So much so that he once said that he was having to get used to not being welcomed as a celebrity every time he arrived.
Conrad, from Barbados, was the Vice-Captain and opening batsman of the West Indies cricket team when they were world champions. During their tour of Australia in 1960-61, he gave a radio talk in Adelaide. He concluded: ‘I hope to contribute much to the world effort of sowing love where there is hatred, reaping peace where there is war and spreading light where there is darkness.’
I hope to contribute much to the world effort of sowing love where there is hatred, reaping peace where there is war and spreading light where there is darkness.
He received many appreciative letters from listeners, but he felt he was a hypocrite, as he wrote later in his autobiography Playing to win. His Christian convictions didn’t stop him ‘exploiting women for my pleasure’ and using cricket ‘for fame and fortune’.
The next test match was in Melbourne, where an avid cricket fan, Jim Coulter, invited him to see the Moral Re-Armament (now Initiatives of Change) film The Crowning Experience, portraying the story of African American educationist Mary McLeod Bethune.
After the film Conrad said, 'I have felt we [Barbados] may get our independence but whoever can harness the bitterness left from slavery will finish up in charge of my country.' The film, Jim Coulter wrote, ‘was the first thing Hunte had seen that could deal with that bitterness. He decided to try Bethune's approach of listening in quiet for God's direction.’
That Easter, Conrad made his first visit to Caux. The weekend ‘was like an opening of a window on a new world,’ he wrote. ‘On the evening of Good Friday I gave my life to God and asked him in the silence of my own heart what I should do.’ His first step was to pay back money to his father that he had stolen and to the West Indies Cricket Board of Control which he had cheated on his expense accounts.
His early retirement from cricket was prompted by two factors: a knee injury which forced him out of the sport for six months; and the gathering storm-cloud of racial hatred in Britain, where he had lived since 1956, and around the world.
He feared that other blacks would regard him as an Uncle Tom, while a challenge to white British to change would meet with ‘fierce resistance’. As he walked down a street in Mayfair, he had the compelling thought to look up. There on the wall was a beer advert: ‘Take Courage’*. He went into the church opposite ‘and on my knees accepted the commission to fight with others to forestall racial violence in Britain’.
He went into the church opposite ‘and on my knees accepted the commission to fight with others to forestall racial violence in Britain’.
When Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968 the police expected major riots in Notting Hill, London, and elsewhere. When they didn’t happen, local authorities attributed this in part to encounters of Black Power members with Hunte and his colleagues from Moral Re-Armament over the previous months.
Hunte’s campaign took him to 33 British cities before he was invited to the US to help in race relations there. In Roanoke, Virginia, he met Patricia (nee Wilson) in 1979. They met again in Caux the following year. They were married on her parent’s farm in Cascade, Va, in 1982. They lived in Atlanta, where Patricia became a TV news anchor, and they had three daughters. In 1992 the family moved to South Africa, where Conrad trained young Africans in poor communities in cricket and promoted reconciliation.
Hunte returned to Barbados in 1999. There he was knighted and won the presidency of the Barbados Cricket Association.
On a visit to Sydney, Australia, later that year, he suffered a heart attack while playing tennis with Jim Coulter. He died, aged 67. ‘Thousands and thousands of young South Africans are better because of his influence,’ said Ali Bacher, head of cricket in South Africa, at his funeral.
Thousands and thousands of young South Africans are better because of his influence.
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Watch an extract with Conrad Hunte (from 26"47') from the film Choice for an impatient world (1977)
Watch Conrad Hunte in an interview in Chapter and Verse (1976)
________________________________________________________________________________________________
This story is part of our series 75 Years of Stories about individuals who found new direction and inspiration through Caux, one for each year from 1946 to 2021. If you know a story appropriate for this series, please do pass on your ideas by email to John Bond or Yara Zhgeib. If you would like to know more about the early years of Initiatives of Change and the conference centre in Caux please click here and visit the platform For A New World.
When we launched the 75 Years of Stories series in February 2021 about 75 years of encounters at the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Caux, we had no idea what an adventure we had embarked o...
As our series of 75 stories for 75 years of the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Caux draws to an end, the President of Initiatives of Change Switzerland, Christine Beerli, and its two Co-Di...
In 2020, the Caux Forum went online in response to the pandemic. Its organizers found that this made Caux accessible to people all over the world who could not have taken part in normal circumstances....
During World War II, the Caux Palace (later the Initiatives of Change conference centre in Switerland) provided a refuge for Jews fleeing the Shoah. Over the years, some of them – or their descendants...
When Tunisian economics graduate Wael Boubaker joined the Caux Peace and Leadership Programme (CPLP) in 2018, he expected a conference which would look good on his CV, and some beautiful scenery. Inst...
Tanaka Mhunduru from Zimbabwe is one of the organizers of the Caux Peace and Leadership Programme (CPLP), a one-month programme for young people from around the world. He first took part in 2017....
The Winter Gathering of 2016 was a special experience for Diana Damsa – not just because she experienced Caux in winter, but also because, for the first time in eight years, she had no responsibilitie...
Lisbeth Lasserre came from Winterthur, where her grandparents, Hedy and Arthur Hahnloser, had built up a private collection of art at their home, Villa Flora. Amongst their artist friends were Bonnard...
Catherine Guisan is Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota, USA. She has written two books on the ethical foundations of European integration. In 2014 she spoke at Caux’s first se...
2013 saw the first full-length Caux Dialogues on Land and Security (CDLS). These events, which took place at the Caux Conference and Seminar Centre, focus on the links between sustainable land managem...
When Merel Rumping from the Netherlands first visited Caux in 2012, she had a goal in mind – ‘to explore how I could contribute to a more just world through my professional activities’....
For many years, Lucette Schneider from Switzerland organized the team which gathered in the early mornings to wash, peel and chop vegetables for the kitchens of the Caux conference centre. ...
Mohan Bhagwandas is all too aware of his carbon footprint. In the 13 years from 2006 to 2019, he flew 17 times from his home city of Melbourne, Australia, to Switzerland to take part in the Caux confe...
25 distinguished Indians and Pakistanis came to Caux in 2009 with the aim of building bridges between their countries. The man who initiated the gathering was Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Ga...
2008 saw the launch of an unusual course on Islam’s approach to peacemaking for young Muslims and non-Muslims, devised by Imam Ajmal Masroor from the UK. The course’s coordinator, Peter Riddell, descr...