Category: Harvest

Harvest Fast Day: Getting ready to Brighten Up!

September 10, 2015

HFD15-schools-identifier_one_layerKatharine O’Brien is a parish youth worker at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Wanstead. This Harvest we are asking children and young people to Brighten Up to help build a brighter world, and in this blog Katharine explains how she will introduce the theme and explore the material with the children and young people she works with.

Harvest Fast Day is approaching. On Friday 2 October, schools and communities around the country will be raising money to support communities affected by violence, like Isabel’s. I watched Isabel’s film and saw the reality of life in San Salvador, El Salvador. The video offers insight into her community, into the heart of the youth project seeking to brighten up the prospects of young people, to tackle the reality of gang culture and the danger they face simply by stepping out of doors. Isabel tells us how sad it is to see the children she grew up with turning to guns and violence.

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Harvest Fast Day: Romero continues to inspire young people this Harvest

September 8, 2015

Kathleen (back row, far left) in El Salvador.
Kathleen (back row, far left) in El Salvador.

Kathleen O’Brien is in our schools team and coordinates resources for secondary schools.

Last February, I was privileged to be in El Salvador when the announcement came that Pope Francis had declared San Salvador’s one-time Archbishop, Oscar Romero to be a martyr, meaning that a date could be set for his beatification. There was great joy expressed by everyone we met that day. One of the Jesuits at the university said to us, “The whole of Latin America has been waiting for this event for thirty-five years!”

Watch our Romero film

Schools in England and Wales are familiar with the name ‘Oscar Romero’. Sometimes when our team visits a school we hear that ‘Romero House’ is the name chosen for one of the school house teams. That resonates with us, as we named our London office building ‘Romero House’ after our former CAFOD partner. Many pupils have learned about Romero’s life in RE lessons during Year 6 of primary school or in the first two or three years of secondary school.

That’s why, in this special year when Romero officially became ‘Blessed Oscar Romero’, we wanted to use El Salvador as the focus for our Harvest materials for schools. The materials look at the stories of Diego (8) and Isabel (15) from San Salvador.

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Harvest Fast Day: Building a brighter future in El Salvador

September 2, 2015

Gemma in El Salvador.
Gemma in El Salvador.

Gemma Salter is on our schools team and produces resources for primary schools.

When I read the papers or the news online, I often find myself looking out for stories from places I’ve visited, or countries that CAFOD partners work in. This happened to me recently, when I came across an article from El Salvador. This one was a striking one – it spoke of the high rates of murder and gang conflict in the country, describing it as the ‘homicide capital of the world’.

Whilst I know gangs and violence are a significant challenge in the country, and I saw this for myself when I visited El Salvador, the article still shocked me. It made me think back to my own trip to El Salvador, where I met eight-year-old Diego and spent time getting to know him and his family.

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