Erasmo and Sandra receive a warm welcome in freezing Britain!

Office Volunteer Molly Bishop wrote this great blog post for us last month, but sadly technical gremlins have prevented us from posting it till now.

Last week we welcomed Erasmo and Sandra from Puentecitos, El Salvador. Since the late 1970s CAFOD has been working to help El Salvadorians build a better future. Today the focus is on agriculture, reducing the risk of disasters, HIV and AIDS and creating peace. The community of Puentecitos are linked with parishes in England and Wales through Connect2 to represent this work and to create solidarity across borders. Erasmo works for the Jesuit Development Service (JDS), a CAFOD partner since 1992, that teaches organic farming methods and trains people in farming techniques. The women’s cooperative that Sandra belongs to is helped by the JDS. Before the visit Sandra expressed her hopes for having a chance to see how people work in England and Wales, especially in the countryside, and being able to share these with her family back home.

They were met off the plane by Sarah Smith-Pearse, of CAFOD’s Latin America team.
Welcomed by David Brinn and Catherine Garsed in Bristol, Erasmo and Sandra were taken on a two day tour of the Clifton diocese which included visits to organisations combating poverty and to a parish with whom they have had long term contact. First stop was The Matthew Tree project was the next stop, a food collection charity that provides free food aid to those in emergency need and continued ongoing care and support. This included a stop at the supermarket, where Erasmo was keen to inspect the range of coffee on offer.

Erasmo looks at the coffee on offer

Next, St. James’ Priory in Bristol city centre, where residential support services are offered to vulnerable people struggling with drugs and alcohol. Lunch was enjoyed in the cafe at St. James where they were joined by Jenny Foster and Lydia Nash, Fair Trade coordinators for the South West and Gloustershire respectively.

Sarah (centre) facilitates a discussion on Fair Trade between Jenny Foster and Erasmo over lunch at St. James Priory

Later that day the pair were received at St. George’s parish, Taunton, for an evening of presentations, thanks and culture sharing. Connect2 has provided the link between the Taunton parishes St George’s and St Theresa’s and the community of Puentecitos for a long time. The joy in making face-to-face contact after years of overseas support and correspondence was wonderful. Erasmo and Sandra had felt the benefits of these parishes’ donations first hand.

CAFOD Clifton Diocesan Manager, David Brinn, speak to supporters at St George’s, Taunton

Full of thanks, Erasmo offered a prayer for those still struggling and yet to benefit as they have.

Lord:
Show me the pain of those who are most troubled
So that I can learn about the suffering of my people
Grant me the courage to serve others
Because in surrender there is eternal life
Illuminate us with song and celebration
And raise the Spirit amongst us
May the Spirit flower and grow
And give us strength to continue our struggle
May we remember those who have died from injustice
Because for us they have given their lives
Amen
(A prayer written by Salvadoran farmers
working with the Jesuit Development Service)

It wasn’t all hard work! Erasmo and Sandra found time to visit Stonehenge.

Keep up with what’s happening in Puentecitos by following the Connect2 El Salvador blog: http://connect2elsalvador.wordpress.com/

Connect2 is a way to build worldwide solidarity and deepen our links in the UK with a community overseas. You can choose not only to connect to El Salvador, but also to Brazil, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Cambodia. More information on Connect2 is available on the CAFOD Connect2 Webpage. If you’d like to sign up for Connect2, contact CAFOD Clifton: 0117 942 8328 or clifton@cafod.org.uk

IF campaign hits Bath!

On Monday (4^th April) CAFOD Clifton and Christian Aid South West held a joint event at Bath University’s Multi-Faith Chaplaincy, together with a speaker from Oxfam, to talk about the multi-agency ‘Enough Food For Everyone IF’ campaign. The campaign was launched nationally on 24^th February and launched regionally the following day, including a launch event in Bristol.

 

The ‘Enough Food for Everyone IF’ campaign is a coalition of more than 100 development charities, faith organisations, diaspora and youth groups, backed by hundreds of thousands of supporters. All are uniting to call for concerted action to tackle the most serious development challenge the world faces – hunger. The campaign will address four areas: investment (including aid and innovative sources of climate finance), tax, land, and transparency.

 

There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, yet one-in-eight people go to bed hungry every night and it’s totally preventable. 2013 presents a historic opportunity for UK leadership on international development. The Government will meet its pledge to spend 0.7% of national income on aid and chair the G8 and the Prime Minister will play a lead role in negotiating the next set of global development goals.

 

                       

 

The students who attended the event on Monday were very keen to make sure that their voices are heard, so they wrote to their local MP, Don Foster (LibDem) asking him to show his commitment for 0.7% of national income to go to the aid budget. They also want to ensure that the Finance Bill will force UK companies operating in developing countries to own up to tax dodging. They wrote on paper plates to symbolise the empty plates of the almost one billion people who go to bed hungry every night and the messages on them are what they would call for if they had a voice.

 

The students are eagerly awaiting a response from their MP and hope to set up an IF campaign group on campus.

 

 

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2013

8 March marks the 100^th year of International Women’s Day. This day is a celebration of the economic, social and political achievements of women worldwide. At CAFOD we believe that to unlock the potential of women and girls is to unleash a world-changing force of nature and this year we are focusing on education and training.

70% of the world’s poorest people are women and girls. With education and training these women would have greater opportunity to work and provide for the needs of their families. Getting a fair wage is a vital part of meeting this aim. Securing fair wages for the work women do can transform a community. Not only can the money be used to learn new skills, it can also be invested in the education needs of their children.

This change is already being seen. Read the story of the group of Ghanaian women in Bolgatanga who, with Fairtade certification, have plans to fund local school equipment, a library and even a computer centre with their fair wages in the future here.

There are hundreds of ways to get involved, both through CAFOD and locally. If you’re feeling inspired get in touch with CAFOD Clifton and we’ll see how we can support any ideas you have! Local groups and organisations also have their own plans so check out local networks to make the most of International Womens’ Day 2013. 

Pascasie, Francoise and Jeannine with sweet potatoes. As well as receiving medical care, trauma counselling and legal advice from the CDJP Listening Centre, the women also take part in a range of income generating group activities. They grow and cultivate crops together, one of which is sweet potato, which they then take to sell at the market and share the profits among the group. Jessica Matthews/CAFOD. 

 

 

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Look what our fabulous supporters in Clifton Diocese have achieved! A virtual village full of life-changing World Gifts! With 37 gifts and counting, including healthcare facilities, education equipment and agricultural supplies and training, this village really is thriving! Thanks to everyone who has contributed towards the village!

Advent Reflection

Need a bit of time for quiet reflection amidst the hectic frenzy of Christmas preparations?

Check out CAFOD’s online advent calendar here:

http://www.cafod.org.uk/Pray/Advent-Calendar

Let them eat cake!

 

Our flurry of activity continued unabated with a supporter day on 27^th October at the Newman Hall in Westbury-on-Trym. The day opened with a short, but very reflective liturgy, focusing on the relevance of Catholic Social Teaching to our everyday lives and the work of CAFOD

The liturgy was followed by our first speaker, Tom O’Connor, head of the Communities and Supporters Division for CAFOD. He spoke about what makes CAFOD the organisation it is today and the strengths of partnerships between parishes in this country and communities overseas. His talk was hugely insightful and really gave us a greater appreciation of how CAFOD’s work all fits together. Our second speaker was Tom Walsh, our Regional Representative for Central America and Mexico who spoke about CAFOD’s peace-building in Central America. This is an area that we don’t always hear so much about, so it was fascinating to hear about work in this region. Similarly, the value of peace-building in development isn’t always given the recognition it deserves, so it was brilliant to hear such positive stories of lives changed through that work.

After lunch, the ladies of the St. Augustine’s, Downend, section of the Catholic Women’s League (CWL) who are also celebrating their 50^th anniversary this year were invited to join Bishop Declan to cut the celebration cake (or rather all 5 of them!) With images of CAFOD’s work over the years depicted on the cakes, there was plenty to go round and many people took cake back to their parishes to spread the celebration yet further.

Cake was followed by our third speaker, Barry Mizen from the Jimmy Mizen Foundation. Barry and his wife Margaret set up the Foundation after their son, Jimmy, was murdered in South East London the day after his sixteenth birthday. Determined for something positive to come out of Jimmy’s death and recognising that their son’s murder wasn’t pre-meditated but a result of uncontrolled anger and hate, his parents and indeed his whole family have committed themselves to peace-building. Barry spoke both about the Foundation’s peace-building work in the UK and their visit to a CAFOD partner involved in peace-building in the Korogocho slum of Nairobi, Kenya.

 

The three talks fitted together very well and brought great life and urgency to CAFOD’s peace-building work amongst its many other areas of work.

 

Throughout the day supporters had the opportunity to visit various different ‘action stations’ to take action for the LiveSimply challenge, the new Hungry for Change campaign, to become a Fairtrade parish and to sign up to become an MP correspondent.

 

The day came to a conclusion with another 50^th anniversary celebration mass (there’s no such thing as too much celebration), celebrated by Father Kevin Mortimer.

 

We want to extend a huge thank you to all who came along to support us as both of our anniversary events and thank our fantastic speakers. We would also like to thank those who helped us set up for the supporter day, without whose help the day wouldn’t have happened and our wonderful clergy for celebrating this momentous occasion with us.

Yam+icon+paddle+cross – what’s the connection?!

October was a busy month for us here at CAFOD Clifton, but we’re finally getting back to normal again, just in time for the busy Advent and Christmas season!

On 23^rd of October, exactly 50 years to the day that the Conference of Bishops in England and Wales mandated CAFOD to be its official development and humanitarian agency, CAFOD Clifton celebrated CAFOD’s 50^th anniversary by officially opening their new offices in Bristol. Celebrations started with a mass at St Bonaventure’s in Bishopston, hosts of the new CAFOD Clifton offices, celebrated by Father Michael Robertson and Father Tom Gunning. During the offertory procession, 4 gifts were brought up to the altar to symbolise CAFOD’s work: an icon of Mary the Magnificat, Mother of the Poor, a Romero crucifix from El Salvador, a yam (a staple food throughout Africa which represents how CAFOD supports communities to achieve a sustainable future) and a paddle (representing CAFOD’s disaster relief work, particularly in flood-hit areas). Three students from St Joseph’s Catholic College in Swindon offered the bidding prayers.

Following the mass, we all moved to the entrance to the CAFOD Clifton offices where Jean Coombs, Ann Marie Sparrow and Monica Jennings watched on by the Lord Mayor of Bristol cut the ribbon and declared the CAFOD Clifton offices officially open. Jean is president of the Diocesan Catholic Women’s League and Ann Marie is president of the Diocesan Union of Catholic Mothers. Monica’s late husband Tony formerly worked as CAFOD’s National Treasurer. The significance of three staunch female supporters cutting the ribbon was the tribute it paid to women of the National Board of Catholic Women who founded CAFOD in 1959.

Guests were given the opportunity to look around the new offices and were then treated to a light lunch back down in the presbytery. We were delighted that so many people turned out to support CAFOD’s 50^th anniversary and celebrate the opening of our new offices.

Harvest Fast Day

It’s been a busy Harvest Fast Day 2012 for the CAFOD Clifton team. This morning David led assembly at St George’s Primary School in Warminster. The children responded really well to the message and also the World Gifts campaign which they have started with their own virtual village.

Then it was back to the office to pick up Catherine and head off to St Bernadette’s, Whitchurch for an excellent soup lunch.

 

Harvest on the Heights

In 1989, a group of 8 mad-cap mountaineers ascended 22,205 feet up Mount Huascarán in Peru carrying a dining table, 8 chairs, cutlery, crockery, wine glasses, serviettes, serving platters and champagne with them. In doing so, they set the world record for the highest dinner party in the world.

Fast-forward to 2012 and a group of 7 intrepid adventurers scaled all 785 feet of Cley Hill near Warminster, carrying a table, chairs, bowls and food for an African-style feast with them. In doing so, they didn’t quite set a world record, but they did draw attention to the plight of the 1.4 billion around the world who go hungry every day.

The group consisting of CAFOD staff and supporters from the Clifton Diocese were raising awareness of CAFOD’s Harvest Fast Day fundraiser which focuses on Gift, a 9-year old boy from Zambia. For many years Gift’s family lived in terrible poverty. When times were tough, they had to eat pumpkin leaves to survive, and his mother became too weak to walk. With CAFOD’s support they turned their lives around and now keep a thriving vegetable garden and livestock. Gift’s life has changed for the better, he has a healthy future ahead and the extra money his family earns ensures he can keep going to school.

Gift says: “I go to the vegetable garden once a day and help my mum to water the crops. I like the nutrition garden, because when I see the tomatoes grow, I know my mum will be happy. We have a little bit more money now and that’s good because we can eat more food.”

This year’s Harvest Fast Day is inspired by a quotation from the book of Isaiah: ‘On this mountain, for all peoples, the Lord is preparing a banquet of rich food.’ (Isaiah 25:6) CAFOD believes that everyone in the world has a right to share in this banquet and the fact that so many millions of people go hungry despite there being enough food to feed the whole world is deeply wrong. Local CAFOD manager David Brinn explained: “That’s why we took our message up to the top of a mountain, to draw attention to this injustice and to introduce Gift to others so that they can also make a place at their table for a child like Gift.”

Joining the adventurers at the table was Gift, as large as life, who was given pride of place as the guest of honour, to share in the feast which included fresh vegetables such as Gift’s family grow in their nutrition garden.

David Brinn said: “The idea is to encourage people to make a place at their table for children like Gift. Harvest is a time to celebrate the gifts of the land and share it with those who do not have enough to eat. 925 million people – one in seven – can’t buy or grow enough food for themselves and their families. It shouldn’t be this way and we should ask ourselves what we would do if a family like Gift’s lived in the same street or town as we do. Making a place at your table is a simple way to help those living in poverty and challenge the injustice that causes hunger.”

The money raised over Harvest will go a long way, providing emergency food for those living in famine and helping communities to tackle hunger in the long term. Just £4 is enough to buy school lunches for a child in Cambodia, while £26 buys everything a family needs to grow rice in Bangladesh and £300 provides ten goats for families living in Zambia.

CAFOD’s annual Harvest Fast Day takes place this year on Friday, October 5. Last year, the charity raised almost £1,500,000 through Harvest Fast Day fundraising activities. The people of Clifton Diocese alone raised over £58,000! Anyone who would like to donate can do so at www.cafod.org.uk/fastday

Greenbelt success!!

I’ve just got back from the Greenbelt Christian arts festival at Cheltenham Racecourse where I was volunteering with CAFOD. The bank holiday weekend was packed with music, talks, workshops, worship, comedy, activism and arts. And mud. Plenty of it!

CAFOD had a stall in the G-Source tent where around 50 organisations were exhibiting, who share Greenbelt’s values in faith, arts and justice and who share Greenbelt’s desire to equip and enable festival-goers to make a difference in the world. Our stall wasn’t just showcasing CAFOD’s work across the globe and our successes as a leading international development organisation, we were also promoting CAFOD’s brand new campaign: Hungry for Change.

Hungry for Change looks at the global food system, and asks, if there is enough food for everyone, why nearly a billion people living across the world are hungry. Hungry for Change officially launched on Saturday 1^stSeptember 2012, and will continue until October 2013. This focus on hunger ties in beautifully with our Harvest Fast Day focus for this year and the story of Gift. As you will hear, Gift’s family had struggled with hunger for many years, but now thanks to a CAFOD food security project they no longer have to worry about where their next meal will come from.

Greenbelt is always fertile ground for campaigning, as there are so many like-minded people and committed Christians willing to engage with a number of peace and justice issues. We aimed to collect 1000 signatures over the course of the weekend for a petition calling on David Cameron to put hunger back at the top of the political agenda. Despite torrential rain shutting down the G-Source venue for a period of time (when our stall and several others found themselves in the middle of a newly-sprung river, there was no choice but to close the venue) and time away from the stall to help with the Catholic Mass on the Sunday, we smashed our target with over 1600 signatures!

On the Saturday a busy day of collecting signatures was interspersed with, first of all photography training and then excursions around the site to gather photos of supporters joining the campaign. In the afternoon CAFOD hosted a joint panel discussion together with Christian Aid, Traidcraft and Tearfund on the importance of campaigning. By that evening, not only had G-Source been abandoned due to the deluge, but the whole site had turned to thick, gloopy mud, which made getting back to our tents a rather interesting experience! However spirits remained high and festival-goers took it in their (welly-clad) stride, with jokes about walking on water abounding and calls for Noah to get a move on with his ark. We were also welcomed warmly by one steward to the ‘Sea of Galilee’ (many of the venues are named after biblical places). However we were well rewarded with a stunning sextuple(?!) rainbow (six rainbows in a row!).

Sunday started with a site-wide Communion service in the open air and presided over from the main stage, followed by a Catholic Mass at the InSense venue. The Mass was organised by the London Catholic Worker and was a very powerful occasion. It was wonderful to celebrate Mass with so many other Catholics from across the festival and many people offered prayers and messages of support for our Hungry for Change campaign, as well as signing the petition after the service. After some more campaigning during the afternoon there was a chance to unwind with a beautiful Taizé service, followed by ‘Last Orders’ which is a round-up of the day’s events, packed with music, comedy and interviews.

By Monday, many people had bailed out early due to the mud, but CAFOD remained resolute and kept up our campaigning. The CAFOD team (6 volunteers and 2 CAFOD staff) were fantastic to work with and seemed to have limitless reserves of energy and enthusiasm.

While it was wonderful to return to a hot bath and cosy bed on Monday night, it’s really sad to think that I’ve now got to wait a whole year for my next Greenbelt!

Catherine

Festival-goers revel in the mud!