March 23, 2022
Join in with your parish and help stamp out hunger. Share details of your walk online and encourage others to join you – small acts of love make big things happen!
Continue reading “Send us your stories from the Community Walk Against Hunger”December 7, 2021
This Advent, CAFOD parish volunteers and supporters are sharing the joy of coming together as a parish community with creative ways of fundraising for World Gifts in their parishes.
Continue reading “World Gifts in your parish: Inspiring others to give from the heart”August 14, 2021
We are excited to introduce and welcome our new team of CAFOD gap year volunteers as they start their new placements. Read on to find out a little bit about the 2021/2022 team as they get ready for their year ahead.
Continue reading “Meet our new Step into the Gap volunteers!”February 23, 2021
Back in January 2020, Rebecca Maxwell travelled to Cambodia with the Step into the Gap programme. A year on, she looks back on why volunteering with CAFOD during her gap year was so inspiring.
Continue reading “Volunteering in my gap year is an experience I treasure”April 16, 2019
Sharon Weerasuriya is spending her year on CAFOD’s Step into the Gap programme. Earlier this year, she felt privileged when she was able to visit the Holy Land, where she met with CAFOD’s partners. Here, she shares her reflections from meeting young people when she visited, Sadaka Reut, a youth partnership organisation and one of CAFOD’s partners based in Jaffa, Israel.
Apply to Step into the Gap today
January 11, 2019
Our team of Step into the Gap volunteers are about to depart for their overseas trips to either the Holy Land or Uganda. We asked them how they are feeling and how they are preparing for their trips.
Apply to Step into the Gap today
Continue reading “Step into the Gap: Embarking on our overseas adventure”
September 4, 2018
Welcome to our new team of CAFOD gap year volunteers! Read on to find out about their placements and what inspired them to join the programme.
I’m Caroline and I’m based at Newman University in Birmingham. I first found out about CAFOD’s Step into the Gap programme when I did my first gap year at The Briars Youth Retreat Centre in the Nottingham Diocese. I studied Human Geography at university, and since then my passion for social justice has grown. My degree allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the inequalities faced across the globe. As I was approaching the end of my studies, I realised I wanted to raise awareness and put my faith into action through working with CAFOD.
Work with young people? Explore our resources
Continue reading “Step into the Gap: Meet the new team of volunteers!”
January 18, 2018
Our team of Step into the Gap volunteers are about to depart for their overseas trips to either Sierra Leona or Nicaragua and El Salvador. We asked them how they are feeling and how they are preparing for their trips.
Kayleigh
Kayleigh is on placement at The Briars youth residential centre in Nottingham diocese
At The Briars we use our morning prayer time and workshop sessions to help young people be aware of many of the issues facing communities in Sierra Leone, for example, recovering from the recent landslide.
When I get back from visiting Sierra Leone I will get the opportunity to visit groups of young people and share what I’ve learnt, and I am so keen to get out there to tell them about the people of Sierra Leone, as I already know that they are invested in what I will be seeing and who I will be meeting. I cannot contain my gratitude and excitement and I truly acknowledge that this programme is a once in a lifetime.
Applications are now open for Step into the Gap 2018. Apply now
Continue reading “Step into the Gap: Preparing for our travels”
September 7, 2017
We’d like to introduce and welcome the new team of CAFOD gap year volunteers as they settle into their placements this week. Read on to find out a little bit about the 2017/2018 team as they gear up for a year of volunteering with CAFOD.
Christopher Burkette – Walsingham House, Brentwood
Hello, my name is Christopher. I am 18 years old and over the next year I am going to be doing a placement at Walsingham House within the Brentwood diocese in the South-East of the UK. I have been previously involved with the work of CAFOD at a campaign raising awareness of the growing issues surrounding Climate Change – One Climate One World; for me an important topic, more today than ever as the effects of climate change appear so prominent in the World around us. For me, it is important for us to care for the World around us – given to us by God as a gift: one we must be stewards of, spend special attention to and care for.
I joined the Step into the Gap programme once the opportunity arose due to my desire to really help people in the wider world around me – I felt the programme gave me an opportunity to make a real difference! This joined with the fact that I have always took an interest in the many varied works of CAFOD. I wanted to be a part of it – in some way acting to represent the values set by CAFOD – not just in work but in my everyday lifestyle. I think that many people don’t have a full grasp of the spectrum of how far-reaching CAFOD work and the amount of people’s lives of which are transformed completely through action of CAFOD and their partners. I feel that I can be a very vocal person, and so feel that the Step into the Gap programme is helpful for me spreading this message of love to others and act towards visible change!
Work with young people? Explore our resources
Continue reading “Step into the Gap: Welcome to the new volunteers”
January 17, 2017
Applications for Step into the Gap 2017 are now open. Ever wondered what life is like for a gapper? Read on to find out! Katy was part of last year’s team, based at St Mary’s Academy in Lancaster.
In October 2015 I wrote a blog about how I was feeling starting the CAFOD gap year. I was excited, nervous and ready for a unique experience. I got it.
In the last week of August I moved up to Blackpool, into St John Vianney’s Presbytery to start my gap year at St Mary’s Catholic Academy. We lived with the Parish priest, Fr Peter, and it quickly became home away from home. I lived there with Peter and Michelle, the second gapper at St Mary’s, and we had so much fun! Living in the parish we got to socialise and become a part of the parish, they were all so welcoming and lovely.
