Megan Cornwell is CAFOD’s UK News Officer working on the One Climate, One World campaign.
This summer, people of all faiths and none from across the country are knitting, stitching, sewing and speaking up, all for the love of our brothers and sisters overseas who are being driven deeper into poverty because of extreme weather like floods, droughts and typhoons.
Whether you’re a seasoned campaigner or just passionate about your faith and our world, Wednesday 17 June is our opportunity to meet our newly-elected MPs and speak up.
If you can’t make the event, you can still make bunting to show your MP what you love and could lose to climate change. Here, four supporters tell us how they’re turning their talent and faith into action for our One Climate, One World campaign.
As mum to two small girls, I’m used to spending my time cutting and sticking. But it’s not so often that this is part of my day job at CAFOD.
Yet, after a day spent reflecting on care for creation with two communities of Sisters and other campaigners, I was surrounded by glue and coloured paper, making bunting.
On Wednesday 17 June, I’ll be joining thousands of people at Parliament to call on our MPs for action on climate change, for the love of creation and for our neighbours.
Susan works in CAFOD’s Education team. This blog was written just before the 2015 UK general election.
I have a confession to make. Despite years of working for CAFOD and writing to my MP about social justice, I had never attended a hustings meeting of election candidates in my constituency until this month.
Email your candidates during the 2017 general election campaign with a question on poverty and climate change.
My parish, the Church of the Transfiguration in Kensal Rise, decided to host a hustings for the first time this year. The parish is on the border of two particularly interesting constituencies.
Hampstead and Kilburn is the most marginal seat in the country. Glenda Jackson won in 2010 with a majority of only 42. She is standing down this year, as is Sarah Teather, who has been my constituency MP. She had a slightly higher majority, but this is still the 51st marginal seat. So there’s a lot to play for!
Every month, we email CAFOD campaigners – maybe you’re one of them – to share news, feed back on progress and offer new ways in which we need your help.
What do you do when that CAFOD email lands in your inbox? Do you set to and take action? Do you skim through? Do you forward to your friends? Do you delete straightaway? Or do you click reply?
In recent weeks, as our climate change campaign gathers pace, we’ve been receiving lots of replies and emails from you. Some sharing stories of your campaign events, some asking questions, some telling us how we should or shouldn’t communicate.
Every one of these emails makes me stop and think. They reconnect me with what we are doing and why. They remind me that, without the support of countless parishes and individuals across England and Wales, our campaigns would make little difference. Continue reading “CAFOD campaigner? Don’t be shy, reply”
Father Augusto Zampini Davies is a RC priest, Moral Theologian and theological advisor to CAFOD. In the second of a series of blogs, Father Augusto explains how caring for creation is at the heart of the Easter message.
At Easter we celebrate Christ who redeems all of creation
The environmental question brings together two central elements of Church teaching: promoting human development and caring for creation. This may sound overwhelming; some may feel it is too broad, or that it is exclusively related to scientists and experts. And including these concerns into our already busy and moving activities of the Easter season can be exasperating. Yet as Christians we have important reasons to consider the environmental question.
First, many of our brothers and sisters across the world experience the disastrous effects of climate change on a daily basis. For example in Nicaragua, crops are failing due to the extreme drought.
Lázaro Gutierrez is a teacher in the community of Santa Ana in the dry corridor of Nicaragua. Lázaro has seen the struggles which the families of his students have faced over the last few years due to the changing climate. With the support of our partner Caritas Jinotega, he has been working with the children to learn how to care for the environment and live sustainably.
Lázaro has a dream for the school. With our partner Caritas Jinotega he has been working to create a school garden, with fruit trees and vegetable plots, so the children can learn about nutrition and growing food and share what they learn with their families. He looks forward to the day when the trees they are planting now grow tall and throw shade where the children can sit and play at break times.
Barbara Kentish (pictured centre) is the Justice and Peace worker for Westminster diocese and a CAFOD supporter. She explains here why she’s extended the practice of fasting to the first of every month, and why fasting and prayer is gaining momentum with people of all faiths as a way to highlight the need for urgent global action on climate change.
I have worked all my life for inclusion of one kind or another: race, rich and poor, gender and culture. Climate change challenges all of us to see ourselves in relation to the whole human family and to deepen our solidarity in order to address our common future.
It was my sister who first got me involved in climate change campaigning. She is an eco-theologian with a deep expertise on drought in Rajasthan. But I’ve also been influenced by close friends who have been climate advocates for decades.
The idea of praying and fasting for the climate came from Yeb Sano, Filipino leader of his country’s delegation to the Warsaw Climate talks in 2013.
He made an impassioned speech about the devastating effects of Typhoon Haiyan in his country and pledged to fast for the climate until an effective international solution had been reached. He will also be walking from Rome to Paris in December, with a copy of the Pope’s forthcoming encyclical, in the lead up to the COP 21 climate change talks in Paris. Continue reading “Lent 2015: Pray and Fast for the Climate”
I love the first really sunny day of the year. The kind of day when you can go out without a coat for the first time, feeling the heat on your skin and seeing spring flowers starting to poke their heads through the grass.
On Saturday I was delighted to see that this day had finally arrived! I admit, the first thing that popped into my mind wasn’t ‘This is the ideal day for a protest’. Instead, pictures of BBQs, picnics in the park, bike rides, and ice creams started to flash before my eyes. Continue reading “One Climate One World: Why I marched for action on climate change”
Dom Goggins from CAFOD’s Government Relations team
Dom Goggins works in the Government Relations team at CAFOD. He looks back at political progress made on climate change and looks forward to a busy general election period.
With so much at stake in the next few months – a general election focusing on vital issues around the economy, the NHS and the UK’s role in Europe among other things – climate change can sometimes feel like a distant challenge – something we can put to one side for now and deal with in the future.
That might even be the case for many of us in the UK, but climate change already has a devastating impact on many of the poor communities we work with around the world; amplifying existing social, political and economic inequalities and pushing people over the edge. Ultimately, as the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said, “if we don’t confront climate change we won’t end poverty”.
Important progress was made in 2014. CAFOD’s MP Correspondents* played a key part by asking the Prime Minister to show his commitment to climate change by attending a special UN summit hosted by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – and he did! At the summit he echoed CAFOD’s call that the UK should “help those who need it, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable”. Continue reading “Election 2015: questions to ask your candidates”
Sarah Hagger-Holt, CAFOD’s Campaign Engagement Manager, iscutting out one of her favourite habits for CAFOD this Lent. Here she explains why she’s giving up tea – and what you can do to help her cope.
It’s what I have first thing in the morning, often just before bed at night, and four or five times throughout each day.
It’s what I prepare to show someone they are welcome in my house, and what I use to break up a boring day.
It’s my small treat after a cold bike ride or a difficult meeting or to give us all a reason for a rest as I drag my kids round the shops.
I’ve had it in an Indian village – syrupy and sweet – and – full of sugar – on the morning of my wedding to calm my nerves.
There’s nothing wrong with tea. Many of my fellow CAFOD cut-it-outers are doing without things that have a direct impact on the carbon emissions that cause climate change, like eating meat, or taking up environmentally friendly activities like cycling. Tea, apart from the inevitable air miles to get it here, is a fairly minor vice. Especially as I always drink Fairtrade.
Young climate bloggers from St James’ Catholic High School tell the story of their CAFOD training weekend ‒ the fun, the challenges and the inspiration.
“Don’t use your hairdryers …” was one of the first pieces of advice we were given on arrival at the Othona Community in Bradwell on Sea “Hairdryers use more electricity than all the ovens, lights, fridges and freezers in our community joined together. If you use a hairdryer it could overload the system.” As the Orthona Community was off the main grid, frizzy hair it was to be. This was the first of many lessons learnt whilst experiencing sustainable living. The hard work and fun was about to begin.
