CAFOD volunteers don’t drop the ball at Greenbelt Festival

Joe Howell (centre) with the other CAFOD volunteers at Greenbelt

Joe Howell, who first got involved with CAFOD through a Young Leaders’ weekend run by the Youth Team when he was in the Sixth Form, shares his experience of campaigning with CAFOD at Greenbelt Festival…

Find out how to join the Great Generation of young leaders at cafod.org.uk/greatgeneration

As a liberal Christian music and arts festival, Greenbelt is perhaps not something I would have come across on my own. That said I am incredibly glad that I did, and having spent four days campaigning with CAFOD I was blown away by the incredible atmosphere at the festival.

Along with six other volunteers, Ann, Beth, Emma, Rachel, Jo and Joanne, and James from the CAFOD Campaigns Team, I promoted the new Don’t Drop the Ball campaign on climate change. As a geography student at university, climate change is an issue I have studied and am passionate about as it is already affecting communities in the developing world.

Our aim was to talk to as many of the 20,000 festival goers as possible about the campaign and ask them to sign action cards. We were helped in this monumental task by our very own full size replica of a No.11 Downing Street Door (complete with a photo of George Osborne!) that allowed campaigners to post their cards ‘directly’ to the government and caught the eye of many passers-by.

As well as the door and our stall, our resident juggler Steve provided a nice visual demonstration of our tag-line “Don’t drop the ball on climate change”. His array of juggling toys were also great in attracting adults and young people alike to stop and enjoy some time out from the festival and to hear about our campaign.

Whilst the campaigning was a lot of fun, it was tiring and we spent most of day on our feet. To help with this I found myself setting targets for the number of action cards to collect – a great way to keep on track and contribute to the team’s overall total! And when work finished we had time to enjoy the wide variety of music, worship, talks, and comedy on offer, not to mention a whole host of exceptionally different foods.

Simply exploring the festival site was a particular highlight for me, enabling me to stumble across superb talks, energetic bands, and a range of entertainment I would never normally experience. What’s more it was amazing to have our campaigning rewarded at the end of the festival by a grand total of 1,375 signed action cards, a number which smashed all our targets! This topped off a brilliant bank holiday weekend, and I would certainly now recommend the festival to anyone as well as the overwhelmingly positive experience of volunteering for CAFOD with a great team of people. I certainly hope to return in future.

Remind our government not to drop the ball on climate change. Email Chancellor George Osborne today ahead of important UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa later this year.

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