Biographical Information
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Biographical Information
Vanessa Julye was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended and graduated from a Friends Boarding School, Westtown School, in the 1970's. Vanessa obtained a Bachelors Degree from Temple University . She has taken some graduate courses at the University of Pennsylvania in their Organizational Dynamics Program.
Vanessa has been a guest speaker for many churches, organizations and Quaker conferences. She is an active member of the Religious Society of Friends, serving on numerous committees in her local meeting (Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, CPMM) and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PhYM) as well as on the boards of Quaker organizations. Currently Vanessa is co-facilitating a group of Friends from within PhYM who are working on the issue of racism in the wider community, both Quaker and non-sectarian. Vanessa has a calling to ministry with a concern for helping the Religious Society of Friends become a whole blessed community. She leads workshops about racism, focusing on its eradication and the healing of racism's wounds. Vanessa has established several organizations to empower people of Color.
Vanessa has written several articles about her experience as a Friend of Color in the Religious Society of Friends. Her photographs were printed in the Philadelphia Tribune accompanied by an article written about the 2000 Gathering of the Fellowship of Friends of African Descent (FFAD) in Jamaica.
Vanessa also attended the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, August - September 2001 and the follow-up Conference for African/African Descendants held in Barbados, October 2002. She worked for a couple of years with the Green Circle Program, a human relations program that helps children and adults understand and appreciate difference. Prior to that she was the Associate Secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas for many years. Vanessa is currently writing a book that explores the relationship between African Americans and Quakers from the 17th Century to the present day. She wrote the forward for a pamphlet published in January 2003 by Friends General Conference by Margaret Hope Bacon, “Sarah Mapps Douglass, Faithful Attender of Quaker Meeting: View from the Back Bench.“
Vanessa lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Barry Scott. Her son, Kai and step-daughter's Ellen and Maggie are currently enrolled in college.
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