December 22, 2023
All through Advent, wonderful people just like you have been showing true love for our global family by buying World Gifts as Christmas presents. Whether you bought your nearest and dearest a Happy Queen Bee or Community Water Supply, your incredible support has inspired us to thank you – in song form!
Continue reading “The twelve days of World Gifts this Christmas”December 14, 2022
Christmas is a time for giving back and for remembering those who are struggling with poverty this winter. This Christmas, give the gift of hope with some of our World Gifts. Support one of our Christmas events in person or online or, even better, plan your own! There’s no end to the number of ways that you can make a difference this Christmas.
Continue reading “Give the gift of hope this Advent”November 30, 2020
This Giving Tuesday, Becky Such our World Gifts Coordinator muses on the benefits of giving to others and how many of us have chosen to give differently this year.
Continue reading “Give back this Giving Tuesday”November 27, 2020
Jack works for CAFOD. He has occasionally received Christmas gifts he didn’t like – but not from you, he loved yours. Here he mulls on the simple switch he (and his relatives) can make, so that Christmas is happier for everyone.
November 19, 2020
On World Toilet Day, Ged Naughton remembers his relief to find a pristine toilet provided by CAFOD on a work trip to Liberia – but billions of people around the world still need access to clean, safe sanitation.
Continue reading “Learning on the job: How toilets transform communities”November 17, 2020
Christine Allen, CAFOD’s Director, picks out some of her favourite World Gifts and explains why they’re a great way to give this Christmas.
Continue reading “Why I’m choosing World Gifts this Christmas”December 5, 2019
As we get swept up in all the manic preparations this festive season, it is important to remember the true meaning of Advent and Christmas. Sinead Callaghan, Young Leadership Coordinator at CAFOD, believes it is an opportunity to spread love and give to those in need. Continue reading “World Gifts: give the gift of love”
June 3, 2019
Becky works on World Gifts at CAFOD. She tells us why she buys her Dad a World Gift for Father’s Day as well as celebrating the other father figures in her life.
Continue reading “Father’s Day gifts for the Dad it’s hard to buy for”
March 26, 2019
Becky is the World Gifts manager at CAFOD. She tells us about the inspiration she gathers from our female founders and our new director, as well as the women she learns about through her research for World Gifts.
When I first looked at applying to CAFOD, one of the things that really struck me about them as a charity is the story of their founders. Back in 1960, Jackie Stuyt and Elspeth Orchard, alongside women from other Women’s Catholic unions, joined together to run the first Family Fast Day.
Continue reading “CAFOD – Empowering women from day one”December 12, 2018
Rachel works for CAFOD. Here she reflects on how meeting Katy, a CAFOD Gapper, helped her to discover the power of a simple birth certificate, and inspired her to create a new, very special virtual gift for CAFOD’s World Gifts collection that will help babies and children around the world.
A birth certificate. Every person needs one, it shows our citizenship, lets us get a passport – it tells the world who we are. And I think that here in the UK, we take this simple legal document for granted.
But for people living in poverty, perhaps in rural areas, where babies are born at home, it is often forgotten. And a child without a birth certificate faces problems.
In Zimbabwe, children without a birth certificate cannot go to school, take exams, apply for an ID card, vote, travel, nor access many other basic essential services.
You can buy a Birth certificate World Gift so that a child can go to school
I’ve worked in fundraising for years and am always eager to hear about how donations help. Katy, who recently travelled to Zimbabwe on a gap year trip with CAFOD, told me about the terrible and long-lasting impact of growing up without a birth certificate.
Katy said, “Children around the world continue to grow up without the basic human right of an identity.”
This startling comment gripped me.
Continue reading “The power of a Birth certificate – a World Gifts update”
