What is SPEAK?

SPEAK is a network connecting together students and young adults to pray and campaign on issues of global injustice.  Through bringing change to situations of injustice, we aim to share our faith in God.  We take our name from Proverbs 31 v 8-9 which urges us to…

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.  Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and the needy.”

Our two main campaigns at the moment are The Big Dress Campaign, focussing on the need for greater legal accountability of multinational companies, within our broader Trade Justice Campaign, and Counting the Cost which is our campaign for an end to government support and promotion of the arms trade.  The Big Dress Campaign takes its name from our huge creative petition of prayer and messages about trade justice which we have collected over the last 3 years.  People have written their message on squares of fabric and these have now been sewn together to make the biggest dress in the world, and been turned into a marquee – some of you who got to the G8 protest in Edinburgh saw it there.  We hope to take this on tour in the near future so look out for more news!

SPEAK's Big Dress.

SPEAK has always worked with others in our campaigning and praying and we partner for justice with Christian Aid, Tearfund, World Vision and 24/7 Prayer and in the student world we work with UCCF and Fusion.

There are lots of ways people get involved with SPEAK from signing up to receive our regular ‘Pray & Post’ cards to use in praying and campaigning on a regular basis to setting up a SPEAK group.  We also very much try and function as a network not an organisation and so have regular participative meetings for national planning, envisioning and decision-making.  We’ll be exploring our campaigns and giving people  the opportunity to get more involved at Soundcheck our annual gathering in February (24th-27th) so if you want to come, or know people who would like to just get in touch.  For more information and resources visit the web site www.speak.org.uk or call the Network Support Team who I work for on 0161 256 2728 (my office) or the London team on 0207 249 4309.

Hope to be campaigning and praying with you soon, and don’t forget, if you think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never been in bed with a mosquito!

God bless,

Ben Gilchrist