Uncategorized Archives - Page 3 of 12

5 ways to have your own Royal Wedding

May 18, 2018

Harry and Meghan have been busy in the past few months planning their wedding – and so has Therese! She’s been enjoying some of the slightly different ways that weddings can be celebrated. If you’re planning your wedding, why not see if you can encompass some of these ideas.

Who doesn’t love a wedding?

Full of love, happiness, cheesy music and people dressed in their best. It’s a fantastic day of bringing families and friends together to have a great celebration.

My boyfriend Joe proposed to me last Valentines day and we were amazed with all the messages of love we received. We have (well, really, I have) been keeping a keen eye on the build up to the latest Royal Wedding. I have particularly been paying attention to some little breaks in tradition, like asking guests to donate to their chosen charities rather than gifts. If I were a guest at Harry and Meghan’s wedding I would be rather relieved by this request, I can’t even begin to imagine what you would buy a Prince and future Princess!

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The life blood of our Earth

May 10, 2018

Becca Haile is our Bangladesh Programme Officer. She tells us about the negative impact of chemicals in farming and the importance of moving towards more sustainable solutions.

Soil is, quite simply, the life blood of our Earth. It sustains our food production and provides a habitat for millions of living organisms. It can even help regulate our climate. But I’d never truly understood just how important soil is to the well-being of our planet before I visited Bangladesh and spoke to farmers whose lives had been directly impacted by changes to their soil.

In 2017 I met 38-year-old Jamal Hossain. He is a small-scale farmer, father and husband from Jessore in South West Bangladesh. Jamal described to me how just four years earlier he had to stop farming completely. Years of applying excessive amounts of chemical fertilisers and pesticides to his soil had left him in poor health and unable to continue working on his land. Jamal had also noticed that the quality of his soil had worsened over the years and his produce had suffered.

To make ends meet he took up work as a day labourer. He transported stone and concrete to construction sites. “It was hard work and physically draining. I so wanted to start working on my land again but I was too worried about my health,” Jamal told me.

Time is running out to double your donation! You have until 12 May to have your donation matched by the UK Government.

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What our Lent challenges taught us

April 13, 2018

Hal and Cherrie from London based east-meets-west electronic pop group Ooberfuse have finish their Lent challenges! They told us how they felt being free to enjoy their favourite treats, and what they’ll take away from the experience.

Hal: It’s been a long drawn out ordeal. But then that’s the whole point of a 40 day period of abstinence. I never thought I would miss the discipline required to stay faithful to my Lenten pledge. As reported earlier, depriving myself of hot food and hot drinks could not have come at a colder time of the year. It was a perfect storm which made the challenge more intensified.

Cherrie: Weirdly I think I miss the afterglow of depriving myself of what previously I considered to be essential – a daily dose of chocolates.

It’s not too late to donate to our Lent appeal and have your donation doubled by the UK Government

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Climate champions share their experience of global climate conference

November 17, 2017

CAFOD climate champions, John Paul and Eleanor Margetts, share their experience of attending COY13, the 13^th Youth Conference that runs alongside the annual climate conference COP23.

Hello! Our names are John Paul, Edward and Eleanor and we have just finished taking part in COY13, the Conference of Youth that took place in Bonn, Germany, ahead of the COP23 Conference – the conference of parties which meets annually to discuss climate change.

The COY13 conference aims to mobilise people into taking action for climate change, particularly in the context of implementing the Paris Agreement as a result of COP21.

Learn more about CAFOD volunteering opportunities

We formed part of the youth delegation, a gathering of around 1,000 young people from all over the world, coming together to learn and to share ideas on making positive changes for the good of the environment and for climate justice.

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Gifts in wills: Lisl’s legacy of love

September 15, 2017

CAFOD legacy officer Hannah Caldwell shares the inspiring story of Lisl Steiner, who fled the Nazis, became a teacher and continues to change children’s lives by the gift she left to CAFOD in her will.

There are so many inspirational people at the heart of CAFOD’s work, each with their own story. I’m lucky that in my job every now and then I get to hear a little more of some of these stories.

One that I often think of is that of Lisl Steiner, who supported CAFOD for many years and remembered us with a gift in her will.

Lisl was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, 1923. At 15, as the world was on the brink of war and Jews were suffering cruelty and persecution at the hands of the Nazi regime, she made a lonely journey to England.

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Looking back at 30 years of CAFOD’s work on HIV and AIDS

May 5, 2017

Rob Rees worked in the Africa team at CAFOD for 27 years. He recently shared his experiences of first learning the impact of HIV and AIDS in the communities where he worked at CAFOD’s ‘Marking 30 years of responding to HIV and AIDS’ event.

Rob Rees, former CAFOD employee who worked on HIV and AIDS

In 1986 reports came from Uganda of what was described as ‘slim disease’. The disease was causing weight loss and patients were not responding to any medication. I was due to travel around that time and was asked to add a few days on to my trip to go to Uganda and visit some of our partners and listen to the problems they were facing.

Read about how Kitovu Mobile in Uganda are responding to HIV and AIDS now

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My Lent challenge – giving up complaining!

April 10, 2017

Eleanor works in the Volunteer Support team at CAFOD. Here she talks about what inspired her Lent challenge this year.

CAFOD Lent appeal — From grumpy to grateful – Eleanor’s Lent challenge

7am ‘I’m so tired….urgh….why didn’t I go to bed earlier?

10am ‘How is it only 10am?! It feels like 5pm!’

1pm ‘I wish I’d brought a different lunch’

And repeat!

Looking back on some text messages I exchanged with a good friend of mine I realised that our conversations were a bit on the…whingey side! Not only that, but every conversation was an almost identical list of complaints about things that were really not worth complaining about.

Do something positive this Lent. Support our Lent Fast Day appeal.

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South Sudan famine: Our worst fears have come to pass

March 14, 2017

Fergus Conmee is CAFOD‘s Head of Region for Africa. Here, he writes about how famine in parts of South Sudan has left people on the edge of starvation and how desperately help is needed to restore hope.

Famine and drought in South Sudan threaten families with starvation

If you’ve heard about Sudan in the news recently, it was probably because President Trump included the country in his list of seven ‘banned’ countries. Yet in South Sudan, which split from Sudan in 2011, people are wondering when the focus of the international community might turn to their own – increasingly desperate – struggle.

Please donate to CAFOD’s East Africa Crisis Appeal

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Reflections on Flame 2017

March 14, 2017

CAFOD volunteer, Leah Fox, 19, from Newcastle spoke to thousands of young people at Flame 2017 about her experiences of meeting refugees in Lebanon and sharing messages of hope from the UK. Here, she reflects on her experience and encourages others to act.

Tell us why you were on stage with CAFOD at the Wembley SSE Arena on Saturday 11 March.

Last year I was part of Youth Ministry Team in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, whilst I was there I became a CAFOD Ambassador with representatives from other retreat centres around the country. All around the media, we could see that there were a lot of negative things being said about refugees, and they weren’t being treated in a dignified way. We decided that the Refugee Crisis needed to be addressed so we started talking to the young people we worked with about refugees and gathering messages of hope from them.

Join the 10,000 reasons to hope challenge – write a message today

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Great Generation: Speak up for CAFOD this Lent!

January 26, 2017

Young leaders from Portsmouth Diocese, spoke up for CAFOD this Harvest by running an assembly in their school. (Emily, front row, centre.) — Young leaders from Portsmouth Diocese spoke up for CAFOD this Harvest by running an assembly in their school. (Emily, front row, centre.)

Emily is training as a CAFOD young leader volunteer in Portsmouth Diocese. Alongside other young leaders, this Harvest she spoke up for CAFOD at her school by running an assembly. Their assembly helped fundraise a record amount!

CAFOD’s Brighten Up campaign this Harvest was an opportunity for all of us involved in the CAFOD young leadership programme at my college to co-ordinate our own fundraising in aid of CAFOD’s work, focusing on their partnership in Bolivia.

By using an assembly and service as our main means of communication to students and staff at our school, we were able to get across the message of CAFOD in such a positive way and give CAFOD a new face at our school. By literally trying to Brighten Up this Harvest, we encouraged our student body to all wear scarves to our Harvest Festival whilst giving charitable donations which made for a much ‘brighter’ day!

Speak up for CAFOD this Lent Fast Day, 10 March, in your parish or your secondary school. Continue reading “Great Generation: Speak up for CAFOD this Lent!”