Militant Turkish student Çigdem Bilginer arrived in Caux in 1969 dissatisfied after taking part in student riots against the establishment and the Americans. ‘The American ambassador’s car was burned on our campus,’ she wrote later. ‘But I was disappointed because the people who were out to break down what was already there did not have the answer to corruption and impurity which I was looking for. I was out to try everything and to find something that would really satisfy.’

She loved arguing, to the despair of her parents. An old Turkish lady, friend of the family who knew Caux, suggested she should go there, and Marcel and Theri Grandy, a Swiss couple working for reconciliation in Cyprus, encouraged the idea, feeling that Çigdem would enjoy meeting people from the whole world and various backgrounds. Once at Caux, she argued with all the high-profile people she could find at the conference. She caused quite a lot of upset!

On her tenth day at Caux, completely worn out and talked out, she slipped into the back of the theatre where the film Men of Brazil was being shown in French, sub-titled in German. She neither spoke nor understood French or German.

The feature film tells the true story of reconciliation in the port of Rio de Janeiro, with those involved acting their own parts. At its end, there is a touching scene when the little daughter of one of the port workers is suddenly able to walk, after being paralyzed from birth. It’s a miracle. The scene shows her going into the church with her parents, carrying a huge candle.

People may not forgive me, but my Creator had done so. I felt different. I was not the centre of the universe any more.

Çigdem saw this and began to weep. It came as the culmination of all her discussions and arguments. She ran to her bedroom and threw herself on her bed. Later she said, ‘I knew there was Allah. That Allah was generous, loving, forgiving. As I cried and cried, I felt washed. People may not forgive me, but my Creator had done so. I felt different. I was not the centre of the universe any more.’

A few years later, she joined with young Asians in creating Song of Asia, a musical review telling stories of reconciliation and change. The show toured Asia, Europe and Canada between 1974 and 1976.

In Song of Asia’s programme, Çigdem wrote, ‘Frank Buchman, the initiator of Moral Re-Armament, had the vision for the Islamic countries that they could be a girder of unity for the world.

‘Everyone knows of the suffering and injustice in the Middle East, which has led to so much bitterness and acts of violence. Can those who suffered forgive and the hating ones become free to fight for a hate-free world? We need men and women from these nations who will demonstrate that it can happen."

It altered my whole thinking and freed me from the past mistakes. (...) As a result, we were able to trust each other.

She described how encountering the idea of absolute standards and of listening to the inner voice changed her life. ‘It altered my whole thinking and freed me from the past mistakes, and I put right stolen exam questions, and books which I had stolen from the library, and many things which I had hidden from my parents in my own life. As a result, we were able to trust each other.’

Çigdem went on to teach psychology at Izmir university. On one of her later visits to Caux, a Swiss friend told her about another friend, Ioanna, who was teaching psychology at Geneva University. She had assisted Jean Piaget in his pioneering work on child development and taken his post after his death.

Çigdem invited Ioanna to give a lecture in Izmir. Ioanna is Greek, and Izmir had a large Greek community for centuries before they were driven out by the Turks. So the visit involved much more than teaching psychology. Çigdem and Ioanna became great friends, and, among other things, enjoyed dancing to Turkish music, each in their tradition.

                                           Sadly Çigdem died of cancer in 2012.

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Watch Men of Brazil, the film which impacted Çigdem's life during her stay in Caux.

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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.

• Hope never dies: the Grandy story, Virginia Wigan, Caux Books, 2005
• Photo Caux 1972: Jan Franzon
• Photos Song of Asia: Initiatives of Change
• Photo with Ginny Wigan: Ginny Wigan
• Photo Çigdem and Ioanna: Eliane Stallybrass
• Men of Brazil: Initiatives of Change on For A New World

In 1968, a leadership training course for young people took place at the conference centre in Caux – a precursor of the scores of similar programmes which have followed, culminating in today’s Caux Peace and Leadership Programme.

One of those who took part was a 21-year-old law student brought from Beirut, Lebanon, Ramez Salame. He had encountered Moral Re-Armament (MRA, now Initiatives of Change) earlier that year, and embraced the practice of inner listening. ‘These quiet times were the occasion for God, in whom I had lost all faith, to appear in my inmost self,’ he says. ‘I started having thoughts of real care for people around me.’

One of these thoughts was to take his two sisters to the cinema: at that time they could not  have gone on their own. ‘It was a first victory over the total self-centredness in which I had been living. This brought a deep joy into my life.’

In Caux, Ramez continued his exploration. ‘My roommate challenged me that if I wanted to build a new world I had to “scrape my heart”. In a period of reflection, I noted down things which I needed to put right; my relationships with my father and brother and with some friends I had betrayed, and a book I had stolen.’

It was a first victory over the total self-centredness in which I had been living. This brought a deep joy into my life.

He wrote letters of apology to his father and friends, and gave back the book. ‘The most difficult thing was apologizing to my younger brother and confessing my jealousy; but, yielding to the inner urge, I was finally able to do so. When I did that I was a free person. Old habits and resentments disappeared.’

Seven years later, in 1975, civil war broke out between Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim communities. Ramez joined a Christian militia. ‘One day, in a moment of prayer, I perceived that God had a more important battle than the one I was fighting. I gave away my gun. Later I had a thought to go across the dividing line in Beirut and meet Muslim friends I hadn’t met for a long time because of the war.’ It was so dangerous that he didn’t tell his wife what he was doing.

One day, in a moment of prayer, I perceived that God had a more important battle than the one I was fighting. I gave away my gun.

Ramez and his Muslim friends launched a series of dialogue meetings which brought together influential people from the various communities and parties. He brought scores of young Lebanese to Caux during those difficult years. ‘I shared a room with one of them,’ remembers Ulli Ott Chanu. ‘She spoke French, I spoke English, so it was really hard to communicate. But she gave me a wooden icon which I still have. Whenever I see it I think of her and Lebanon. This is what Caux does to people – opening up the world and bringing people into your heart.’

The dialogues continued after the war ended. Ex-combatants from both sides took part, renouncing the atrocities they had been involved in. One of them was Assaad Chaftari, a former leader of a Christian militia. Today these former enemies work together as ‘Fighters for Peace’, co-founded by Chaftari, to help younger Lebanese to discover ‘what we realized too late – that in a civil war everyone loses’. They speak in schools and universities, organize summer camps, reach out to families who have lost relatives, using dialogues, theatre and an online library of personal stories.

‘The rebirth of my personal faith could have merely made me a self-sufficient and proud Christian believer,’ says Ramez. ‘But IofC has constantly challenged me to go beyond this: to reach out to others – particularly my Muslim compatriots – and to work with them for a renewal that must start first in our own lives, on the basis of our shared need for each other.’

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Watch Ramez Salamé's interview on What dialogue requires to be fruitful (Innerchange documentary)

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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.

• Photo top and video: Inner Change
• Photos on terrace in Caux: Initiatives of Change
• Photo Mediterranean Dialogue: Christoph Spreng
• Photo Assaad Chaftari: Initiatives of Change

Teame Mebrahtu came to Caux in 1967, five years after his homeland of Eritrea was annexed by Ethiopia. The liberation struggle – which was to continue for three decades – was gaining momentum. Resentment against government policies had led to a student strike, which closed all secondary schools.    

As a lecturer at the Asmara Teacher Training Institute, Teame Mebrathu had met members of an international group of Moral Re-Armament (MRA, now Initiatives of Change), who were touring the country with the film Freedom. He recognized the values portrayed in the film as part of his own spiritual upbringing as a Coptic Christian. But the concept of change at a global level was new to him.

His time at Caux was a revelation. He was struck by the mix of countries, cultures and religions represented and by the experiences people shared. He began to see that, if he was to help Eritrea, he needed to lose his bitterness against the Ethiopians and against the Americans based there, who had treated him badly. He decided that, as a teacher, he had a responsibility to bring about change but had first to change himself. It was a liberating experience.

His time at Caux was a revelation. He was struck by the mix of countries, cultures and religions represented and by the experiences people shared.

Back in Eritrea, which was still in the grip of the student strike, Teame began to work with the MRA team. He decided he had a duty to negate the mentality of thinking ‘I can’t do much about the problems’, and that change does not come from silence.

He was a speaker at a mass rally which persuaded the striking students to go back to their studies – an act which is likely to have prevented bloody clashes with the Ethiopian Army. Later some of the students told him that they had been swayed by his comparison of them to an aircraft which had run out of fuel and was trying to land on a runway planted with nails.

Teame went on to become director of the Asmara Teacher Training Institute and then Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Asmara. After the murderous Mengistu regime seized power in 1974, his life was threatened and he sought asylum in Britain.

As a refugee, Teame declined welfare support and borrowed from relatives to support himself and his family. ‘I felt it was important to be a contributing citizen just as I would be in the society I came from.’ As a first step, he went to 100 schools in the south-west of England to teach the children about Africa and promote international understanding.  

You can’t solve problems through the barrel of a gun.

He went on to a distinguished career at the Bristol Graduate School of Education, teaching and mentoring students from all over the world, many of whom became leading educators in their own countries. He was and is still passionate about using education as a tool to bring change in a divided world: ‘You can’t solve problems through the barrel of a gun.’

One of his proudest achievements was a major conference in Bristol on multicultural education, which focused on improving  schooling opportunities for ethnic minorities and making all children aware of a world outside their borders.

He also continued to work to improve education in Eritrea. Between 1986 and 1988, while the fighting still continued, he travelled to the liberated zone of Eritrea to conduct workshops for students and teachers, gathered under trees as Ethiopian MIG jets flew overhead. After independence in 1991, he set up a partnership between the University of Bristol and Eritrea, training educators and education officers.

Now aged over 80, he holds to his conviction that everyone has a personal responsibility to shine a light, however small, on the injustices of an imperfect world. Small chinks of light can become beacons of hope. ‘It’s immaterial where I live,’ he says, ‘it’s immaterial who I am: what is important is the part I play.’

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Watch Teame Mebrahtu speak at a conference held at the Westminster Theater, London, 1977, in the film Choice for an Impatient World from our archives (16'01" - 16'28")

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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.

• Top photo of Zero School in liberated Eritrea: Jenny Matthews 
• Eritrean: Across the Bridge, Mike Lowe, For A Change Magazine, 1987
• Film Choice for an impatient world: Initiatives of Change