young people Archives - Page 2 of 8

Why are young people at the heart of what we do?

September 6, 2018

Chris Knowles works in our education team. In this blog he explains why young leadership is essential to CAFOD’s work.

Our new Hands On project in Colombia has young leadership at its heart because young people are not just the future of our world, but as Rosana, involved in the project in Colombia says;

“We have a responsibility towards our country, we are the present”. Rosana

Read about our latest Hands On project

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Step into the Gap: Meet the new team of volunteers!

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.

Caroline Collins. Newman University, Birmingham

CAFOD gap year volunteers 2018/2019 — Caroline

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

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How a vegetable garden changed my life

March 1, 2018

This Lent you may have heard about Tawanda from Zimbabwe and how hungry he was as a child. You may have heard how CAFOD helped Marian to plant a vegetable garden and how Tawanda’s little brother Svondo grew up with plenty of good food. But what happened to Tawanda?

Can you introduce yourself?

I’m Tawanda. I’m 21 years old and I live in Gokwe North District with my mum, dad, two brothers and little sister.

What was your childhood like?

When I was younger, I remember being so desperate, we’d eat anything. We ate roasted groundnuts with sadza. It’s not something I’d recommend. It’s like eating salt.

What are you doing now?

I have my own vegetable plot at the community vegetable garden. I farm the plot so I can sell vegetables to buy things like clothes and shoes. I enjoy working on the plot – it’s my only way of earning money.

Donate to CAFOD so more people like Tawanda can have the chance to plant their own vegetable garden in Zimbabwe

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World Refugee Day: Building trust and friendship

June 20, 2017

Olwen Maynard is a member of the Asia and Middle East team. She tells us how bringing young people together in Lebanon is helping to build trust among local people and Syrian refugees.

Boys in the Handicrafts class create a sign: ‘Youth across borders: facing life challenges together.”

There’s been a lot of heart-searching in this country about taking in Syrian refugees, and how many would be our ‘fair share’. Something we tend to forget is that most displaced Syrians are still in the Middle East region. Lebanon, a small country with a population of about four million (half that of Greater London), has taken in over a million. Just stop and think about that for a minute.

This World Refugee Day donate to our Refugee Crisis Appeal for refugees around the world. Continue reading “World Refugee Day: Building trust and friendship”

Great Generation: Meet our young leaders

June 2, 2017

“Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.” Laudato Si #13

CAFOD young leaders — Volunteering with CAFOD.

We know that many young people take action with CAFOD, working together to overcome poverty and injustice throughout the world. Many of our partners across the world empower young people to transform their societies.

We’re inspired by them, and know that young people in the UK have the same ability to take the lead, which is why we focus on this area of work in the UK, supporting young people to be key influencers of their peers and local communities.

The CAFOD Young Leadership programme is one of the ways we engage a younger audience in our work, offering sixth-formers an opportunity to take the lead by volunteering for CAFOD to make a difference in fighting poverty and injustice.

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Great Generation: Playing my part

May 24, 2017

Oscar is a CAFOD volunteer who joined campaigners from across England and Wales at a parliamentary reception on 24 April.

“If young people shout loud enough, the government will listen!” Oscar.

Oscar campaigning with CAFOD — Oscar (left) at the parliamentary reception.

The CAFOD MP Correspondence on Monday the 24 April was a truly great experience, and was inspiring in many ways. I came along for multiple reasons.

One key reason was to make the best use of my time as a CAFOD young leader. CAFOD is truly a great organisation with meaningful aims, and I wanted to be a part of that and represent that at Speaker’s house in parliament. Also, I have a passion for politics, so going to parliament and talking to MPs and campaigners about CAFOD’s work and my work as a young leader was a great chance to gain experience and visit parliament.

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How young people are speaking up: A lesson from Zimbabwe

May 12, 2017

Nyarai Mutongwiza works with local partners in Zimbabwe to help young people use story-telling to get their voices heard. She reflects on how we can all speak up to influence decision-makers.

In every culture, stories are regarded as crucial. When I grew up, during evenings sitting around the fire, elders would begin: “Once upon a time…” and the story would go on.

These stories were fairy tales, but at the end of each session, the elders would each take a moment to reflect on the emotions in the story and the lessons learned.

Through this I began to understand that stories could bring a group together – evoking in every person sitting round that fire certain emotions, and sometimes tears.

Make your voice heard with CAFOD during this election period

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Great Generation: Volunteering with CAFOD at Flame

April 6, 2017

Cameron is a CAFOD young leader and volunteered at Flame 2017, an event for 10,000 young Catholics on 11 March. Alongside around 50 other young volunteers, he ran activities with the Flame crowd to raise awareness of CAFOD and global justice issues.

CAFOD volunteers at Flame 2017 — Cameron was part of the young volunteers team at Flame 2017.

I had the opportunity to volunteer with CAFOD at Flame. This was an enjoyable experience and I had a really nice day. For anyone who doesn’t know, Flame is a Catholic event held at the SSE Arena, Wembley. At Flame there are many different speakers and performers such as Matt Redman.

The day started with joining the mini bus in order to take us to Wembley. As we arrived we got into the groups got to know what activities we’d be running as we were volunteering and not just here to watch the performances!

Watch our film shown on stage at Flame 2017

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Great Generation: Carrying the flame of hope with refugees

March 20, 2017

Eleanor Margetts was part of the CAFOD team of young volunteers at Flame. Here she describes how young people learnt about the plight of refugees and were inspired to take action.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of being a part of CAFOD’s volunteer team at Flame, the Catholic youth gathering by CYMFed at Wembley Arena. I had never been to Flame before, so it was very exciting to attend such an inspiring event. I was amazed, not only at the enthusiasm of all the young people in attendance, but at the wonderful messages of hope and solidarity shared by all of the speakers. The striking presence of the boat, a small vessel used to transport refugees from Turkey to the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2013, on the stage of Wembley Arena set the tone for the event as one both of a celebration of Christian faith and one that really aimed to challenge people to put that faith into action by striving for justice.

Take the Flame challenge today – write a message of hope to refugees

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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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