Opening times: 10:00 to 18:00, August 6th-25th (except Sundays).
Edinburgh Quakers have run a café during the Fringe for over a decade. As well as providing wholesome vegetarian food for our visitors, we aim to heighten awareness of local and international charities.
We try to keep our prices reasonable but all the profit we make (including tips), from both the café and the theatre operation, go to charitable work.
Why Quaker Parrot? The breed of parrot called ‘Quakers’ is better know in the USA, where some people keep them as pets. We think they are so called because they are comparatively plain in colouring (usually grey or green) and Quakers in earlier days were known for wearing plain dress, often grey, as part of our witness to equality. Elisabeth Fry, the Quaker prison reformer, got into trouble with her Meeting for wearing red!
This year’s charities
All our profits go to charity. This year, as last year, these are The Quaker Cape Town Peace Centre, Farm Africa, Reforesting Scotland and the work of Quakers in this country and abroad. Here’s more about this year’s special charities:
The Cape Town Quaker Peace Centre
The Quaker Peace Centre in Cape Town, founded in 1988 and supported by Quakers in Britain, is a team of Peacemakers working mainly in townships in the Western Cape Province to help people towards a way of life which encourages the creative, non-violent resolution of conflict through promoting awareness, co-operation and empowerment. It works with young people in prison, in local schools and with projects seeking to reduce the impact of HIV/Aids. Read more on the Cape Town Quaker Peace Centre website.
FARM Africa
FARM-Africa (Food and Agricultural Research Management) is an international non- governmental organisation that aims to reduce poverty through developing innovative approaches to natural resource management in Africa. Through projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda FARM-Africa works in partnership with marginal small-scale farmers and herders to improve the ways in which they farm their land. They believe in working with those most in need: rural communities with a degrading resource base and poor access to markets and services. With even a little assistance, Africa's marginalised small-scale farmers and herders can dramatically improve their lives. Women's empowerment is very important in FARM-Africa’s work and they emphasise the role of women in rural communities where appropriate. Read more on the Farm Africa website.
Reforesting Scotland
Scotland has lost 98% of its natural native forest, with many associated plants and animals now locally extinct. The vision of Reforesting Scotland, a small Edinburgh-based charity, is to transform our deforested land back to a landscape with a mosaic of ecologically healthy and productive forests and well managed farmland. It aims to raise awareness and promote understanding of the deforestation of Scotland and its implications in ecological, social and economic terms, to develop community participation in ecological restoration, forest management and integrated land use, to promote sustainable forest culture and economy in a well-forested land and to place the Scottish forestry situation in an international context and take action in support of forests and their people worldwide. Read more on the Reforesting Scotland website.
Quaker work in Britain and abroad
Quakers are active in work for peace and justice and reconciliation and relief work both in this country and around the world. As a relatively small and non-hierarchical organisation, much of our work is done on a voluntary basis, but we also employ staff both to administer our work and to deliver it. Religiously, we are a non-evangelical, open and tolerant community, believing that actions speak louder than words.