Learning from Mother Teresa’s wisdom
Transforming our food system so that it benefits all of us might sound like a colossal challenge. You may well ask whether it is even achievable! But through digging in to Mother Teresa’s wisdom, we can help find the answers.
One thing your parish can do this summer
Mother Teresa reached global celebrity by caring for those who were uncared for by the rest of society. During her lifetime she personally cared for thousands of people and was admired by millions for doing so.
When Mother Teresa was asked how she did it, she responded: “I never looked at the masses as my responsibility: I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time. Just one, one, one. So you begin…”
Mother Teresa showed us that by focusing on one person at a time, we can take on some of the world’s big challenges. And it this lesson that we want to apply to our work this summer as we campaign to build a better global food system.
Following Pope Francis’ invitation to transform the current food system, CAFOD is calling on the UK government to use its influence at the World Bank to protect the rights of small farmers to save, use and exchange their own seeds.
Across the world, millions of small-scale farmers are under threat from laws, pushed by the World Bank, that restrict or even criminalise their free access to seeds, and push them towards having to purchase more expensive commercial seeds from big companies.
These laws pushed by the World Bank are designed to make it easier for big companies to sell their commercial seeds in poor countries by way of restricting access to the free seeds used by most small-scale farmers.
Standing up against this is where Mother Teresa’s words come in handy : one, one, one….
Would you be able to support one farmer this summer?
Salina is a small farmer and seed saver in Bangladesh. She is working in her community to keep control of the seeds in the hand of small farmers like herself. Salina believes that “the company seed is not designed for farming, it is designed for business. I think seeds and business should not go together. For me, farming is a pleasure … the seeds sold by the companies do not belong to the farmers. Farmers can grow the crops, but they cannot keep the seeds in their own hands. This is a very bad thing…”
Salina has written a letter to the World Bank calling for the protection of the fundamental rights of small-scale farmers like herself to use their own varieties of seeds. This summer, your parish will have an opportunity to support Salina by adding your names to Salina’s letter.
We are inviting all parishes to take part in this act of solidarity with Salina, and show our support to one farmer at a time as we try to create a more just global food system.
To take part in this activity, you can visit the CAFOD shop and request a leader’s guide and a copy of Salina‘s letter. This will enable you to set up Salina’s letter and let people sign it on the way out of Mass. The leader’s guide provides details of everything you need to know, including instruction on what to do with the letter once your parish has added its support.
Your parish may already have a CAFOD volunteer organising a letter sign-up so keep an eye out on your way out of Mass. Do ask your priest if you are not sure if this activity is already being organized in your parish.
Parishioners across the country showing support for Salina’s letter is one way to show the World Bank that the Catholic community in England and Wales stand in solidarity with small farmers in their struggle to defend their rights to use, save and exchange their seeds.
Will something so small be able to create any real change? As Mother also Teresa said: “…We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop….”
