By Tim Devereux, Chair of the Movement for the Abolition of War
I joined blind peace campaigner Tore Naerland, along with Åse Simonsen, Tordis Landvik for a five-day, 222 mile Bike for Peace ride which finished in Bradford on 1st September. Tore Naerland, President of Bike for Peace, is almost totally blind but is a keen cyclist and has organised similar tours all over the world. I rode on a tandem with Tore, while Norwegian cyclists Åse and Tordis rode solo bikes. Other British cyclists joined us on the various stages of our journey, including Leeds Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament Fabian Hamilton on the first leg.
Tim in yellow with fellow cyclists
Bike for Peace is a non-governmental organization in Norway that works for a world without nuclear weapons, for peace and disarmament, to improve the lives of disabled people and for measures to combat climate change (http://www.bikeforpeace.no/).
We rode through Yorkshire and Lancashire, starting with a send-off from the Friends’ Quaker Meeting House in Leeds and meeting Mayors en-route in Skipton, Carnforth, Preston, Rochdale and Bradford. We mainly kept to small roads and paths, but in places, the trip certainly showed the need for better bike infrastructure! When we reached Bradford, after five days riding, the Lord Mayor, Councillor Martin Love, welcomed us with a Civic Reception at City Hall.
In Bradford with supporters on 1st September
Over the years I have ridden a number of times for peace – with Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to the US Spy Base at Menwith Hill, with Westminster Justice and Peace to mark the climate conference, and last year, a solo Peace Pilgrimage for Pax Christi, visiting RAF Fylingdales, part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. The climate friendly bicycle makes a great vehicle for peace protesting – it’s part of the solution to one of the two over-riding issues of our times, which I believe are the climate crisis and nuclear weapons. The toughest bit? Climbing the monster hill just outside Settle – 203 metres at 4 mph. The best bit? Meeting people along the way – we discovered that a tandem with a big CND peace flag on the back is a great way to start conversations! Amazingly, nobody we spoke to thought nukes were a good idea. We here in the UK have so many better things to spend money on than nuclear weapons, now illegal in many countries thanks to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Why not write to your MP to ask why the UK has not signed up to it yet?
By Keith Pitcher (Parishioner in SS John Fisher & Thomas More, Burley in Wharfedale and a member of the J&P Climate Action Group) In June 2022 the Parish Family of SS John Fisher and Thomas More, Burley-in-Wharfedale was the delighted recipient of CAFOD’s LiveSimply award. This is given to Parish Families and schools who have worked together, prayed about, and put in place actions to live simply, live sustainably with creation and live in solidarity with the poor. In our Parish Family this is called our ‘Tree of Life’ project.
The idea began after the Leeds Justice & Peace group held their AGM in our parish hall in March 2019 and, following Canon Michael Mahady’s homily about Pope Francis’ messages in Laudato Si, many of us felt challenged to accept and strengthen, with prayer and commitment, our responsibility for the care of creation. Pope Francis asks for God to grant us the courage to do this without waiting for someone else to begin, or until it is too late.
In Autumn 2019 as a Parish Family and as part of weekend Masses congregations we collected nearly 400 ideas of how we could respond to Pope Francis’ call. We know we are facing climate and ecological crises and we felt it essential to put into practice measures that could start to tackle these issues. The ideas were written on paper leaf labels and hung from branches of a home-made tree – our ‘Tree of Life’.
The suggestions were put into 3 categories: 1. Working with Nature, 2. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle and Renew, and 3. Petition and Education. We have permanently established the Tree of Life in the church porch for our Parish Family to suggest new ideas for the future – ways in which to live simply, care for creation and help others. Some 40 parishioners including many children have led and contributed to turning these into reality. We found this approach works best, forming groups to discuss and take forward initiatives.
Actions to live sustainably with creation The Covid-19 Pandemic delayed initial progress, but the Working with Nature group’s outside activities started as soon as we were able to meet. These include: • flower beds at the front of the church were dug out and a raised bed was built to plant insect friendly flowers & shrubs. • our parish children built bird and bat boxes to put up in their gardens and in the parish grounds. An aerial photograph has been taken and displayed to map out the location of each bird or bat box in the grounds for all to look out for activity within them. • a bug house was designed and built using recycled fence panels, a disused milk crate, a pallet and surrounded by plants to create a garden effect. • a hedgehog hotel, composter and herb bed were built and placed in the church back garden. The composter composts grass cuttings, shrub clippings, raw fruit & veg waste and church flowers. The material will be used as a mulch for the church flower beds. • a water butt was installed and attached to the drainpipe at the side of the church hall. This provides rainwater to water plants in the garden. • our parish children took sunflower seedlings to grow in their gardens. • St Francis’ feast day celebration included children learning and working in the parish grounds as part of their liturgy programme.
Actions to live simply This group’s main focus is on reducing waste & energy usage and installing renewables. Examples of projects include: • the church hall’s single glazed windows are being replaced with double glazing. • old inefficient gas heaters in Sacristy, Lady Chapel and hall have been replaced with electric heaters, thermostats and time control panels. • lighting in the church, hall and presbytery is being replaced with LEDs. • a renewable energy programme has been introduced, with a parishioner providing details on how to plan installations for homes. 6 parishioner families have installed solar panels and one has replaced their gas boiler with a heat pump. • we are re-examining electricity & gas usage and costs of the church, hall and presbytery to provide proposals for installing solar panels and heat pumps. • we have made collection points for items that are currently not recycled by local councils. These include blister packs, batteries, contact lens packaging, pens and pencils. We work with our village to share information about where difficult to recycle products can be collected.
Actions to live in solidarity with the poor We have provided practical and fundraising support for poorer members of our local communities and well as national and international charities. Examples include: • BURLEY-TERELI FRIENDSHIP TRUST – we connect with people of Tereli in Mali, West Africa for fundraising, friendship, and prayer. The charity raises funds for vital healthcare, educational and environmental projects. 3 of our parishioners are Tereli trustees and several members are active fund-raisers e.g. half marathon runners. • CAFOD fundraising. Parishioners have run in the Great North Run, Leeds half marathon and Ilkley half marathon to support CAFOD’s Connect 2 work and also local charities. We have set up a book exchange in the church foyer. Two parishioners did a sponsored Walk for Water during Lent 2021. • PAFRAS – we have organised collections of clothes, toiletries and non-perishable food. During Covid and times of church closure we not only re-modelled but have grown. We now have a central village collection point to which all village church and non-church goers contribute non-perishable foodstuffs, hygiene products, laundry products and other basic commodities. These are taken each month by parishioners to PAFRAS in Leeds. • St. Anne’s Shelter – we collect warm clothing for this charity to give to homeless people. • Catholic Care Christmas presents for children – each year we take gift labels with the age of a child and attach it to a small gift for the child. We had donations to go towards buying stocking filler gifts for the children’s home whom Catholic Care visit and support. • Mary’s Meals –one of our parishioners took part in the Great North Run and raised over £1,000 for Mary’s Meals from parish and online donations. £205 was also raised in a cake bake sale (the cakes were amazing!). Backpacks for children in Malawi and Liberia were collected and filled with teaspoons, hand towels, shoes, toothpaste and brushes and sent to the children in these countries. The total number of backpacks sent so far is over 850. • FAIRTRADE – we are a FAIRTRADE parish and fundraise for this also via our Menston and Burley link. We have a monthly FAIRTRADE stall after Masses and use FAIRTRADE tea and coffee and washing up liquid in our hall kitchen.
Parishioners receive the LiveSimply plaque from Trish Sandbach and Paul Kelly
In autumn 2021 the Season of Creation was celebrated by our parish family. The 4 weeks focused on prayer and activities in response to Pope Francis’ appeal to us all on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day [see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59075041 ] in the lead up to the COP26 environmental discussions. The different focus areas for each week were: our gardens; saving carbon/energy at home; things we buy & how the purchases affect our planet. The final week finished on the feast day of St Francis and was linked to a personal choice based on sharing all the ideas as a parish family.
We held a barbecue in July 2022 to celebrate our LiveSimply award, and also to celebrate our children receiving sacraments, Fr Michael’s golden jubilee and to welcome all who have joined our Parish Family over the last few years.
Looking forward, our future work will build on existing activities to start new initiatives, including feedback received from Trish and Paul as CAFOD’s LiveSimply assessors. Essential parts of this will include: • use new Care of Creation themes and materials in our liturgies • save carbon/energy in our parish buildings and homes • write to and petition our leaders to make sustainable lifestyles and support for the poor high priorities. We will ask them, as Pope Francis says, to do this without waiting for someone else to begin, or until it is too late. (Photos: Our Tree of Life cake and Celebrations on the day)
Feedback received from Trish Sandbach and Paul Kelly as CAFOD LiveSimply assessors
“We were greatly impressed with the depth, breadth and range of actions undertaken, which have involved substantial numbers of the parish across the age spectrum. There is a strong sense of commitment. The creativity of the different elements, especially those involving the children were a blessing and a delight.
We commended particularly The Tree of Life concept as an excellent and visible way to create ‘pegs’ on which to hang individual and collective action. The idea to re-invigorate pledges as the parish emerges from the restrictions of the pandemic means there will be a plan and actions into the future.
The depth and breadth of the actions so far have involved substantial numbers of the parish across the age spectrum.
With reference to future plans, we would encourage further spiritual formation for adult parishioners that is independent of the excellent work taking place via children’s liturgy and sacramental preparation, and increased opportunities for reflective adult liturgy, especially linked with the Season of Creation but also other opportunities that arise from the liturgical. Developing the habit of praying for an aspect of Creation at Sunday Mass e.g. in the Bidding Prayers would be beneficial.
We shared conversations about Living Simply entailing a reduction by us in the use of the world’s resources which enables a more just distribution of resources.
We suggested that making the connections more explicit and coherent between some of the issues e.g. exploring encyclicals such as Laudato Si linking the cry of the Earth, cry of the poor, which will build a strong foundation of spirituality that is deeper than activism on its own. There is a wealth of Catholic Social Teaching, which underpins actions for social and climate justice, to be discovered. Understanding the theology of WHY it is important to work for climate change as Catholics/Christians is part of this formation.
We also mentioned the need to move on to political activity as governments i.e. the journey from charity to justice. Structural change needs the corporate world to be involved in action for change as well as us.
We have every confidence that the future plans will be caring, compassionate and thought- through with actions to care for our common home as we know that their hearts are in it as well as heads and hands.”
By Tim Devereux Chair, Movement for the Abolition of War www.abolishwar.net
This year, as many before, there were events in Bradford and Keighley to commemorate the dropping of atomic bomb on Hiroshima, 6th August, 1945, and in Leeds three days later remembering the Nagasaki bombing, 9th August, 1945. From outrage at the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 – less than 2000 civilian casualties, in just eight years, the world witnessed these two terrible bombings, which killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians.
Susan Clarkson read Fr Daniel Berrigan’s poem ‘Some’ at the Bradford Hiroshima Commemoration Service outside City Hall (https://danielberrigan.org/poems/). While the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Martin Love, read out the message to the world from the Mayor of Hiroshima.
In Leeds, the commemoration began with a two-minute silence, at 11.02, the time the bomb was dropped. Councillor Jane Dowson gave a reading of the Nagasaki Peace Declaration, (https://www.peace-ed-campaign.org/nagasaki-peace-declaration/) as the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Cllr. Robert W. Gettings, was unable to attend due to illness.
Then, Councillor David Blackburn, Chair of Leeds Peace Link, and of NFLA (Nuclear-Free Local Authorities) read the Hiroshima Declaration followed by poetry and prose contributions from members of the assembly. Sam Legg, Yorkshire CND worker, gave a short speech. Finally, musicians and singers performed various songs, including ‘Can you hear the H bombs Thunder?’ – written in the 1950s, alas still relevant today – and the beautiful ‘Finlandia’.
Each year I am moved by this ceremony, but each year is an admission that the world is still under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has been an unpleasant reminder of the dangers of nuclear brinkmanship. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist’s Doomsday Clock (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/20/world/doomsday-clock-2022-climate-scn/index.html) stands at 100 seconds to midnight – closer than ever before!
Pope Francis says, “The Holy See has no doubts that a world free from nuclear weapons is both necessary and possible,” and denounced schemes that give a false sense of security based on possession of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
As I write this, the Tenth Review Conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is taking place. I was a young man, just finishing University when the Non-Proliferation Treaty came into force in 1970. It is a landmark international treaty whose objectives include preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. Its effect on proliferation has been positive – there were five nuclear weapon states in 1970, and there are nine now. The number of nuclear weapons has fallen from a peak of 61,662 in 1985 to 13,400 in 2020 – still plenty to make certain of ‘overkill’!
Under Article 6 of the NPT, all Parties undertake to pursue good-faith negotiations on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race, to nuclear disarmament, and to general and complete disarmament. I am a patient person, but 52 years is far too long to NOT reach the promised disarmament agreement!
There is another treaty that is much younger and I think more hopeful – the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which came into force on 22 January 2021. Nuclear weapons have always been immoral. Now they are also illegal in all respects under international law, with one proviso – a country must sign up to the treaty before its requirements take effect. None of the top 5 nuclear powers have signed. Strange, I remember pro-nuclear types castigating CND for ‘one-sided disarmament’. But along comes a great multilateral treaty, and that’s no good either! The UK, impoverished by Covid 19, Brexit, and now a cost-of-living crisis, needs to scrap Trident, save £200 Billion and sign the TPNW. Humanity faces two existential threats – the Climate Crisis and Nuclear Weapons – we need to act on both right now!
In August our local CAFOD worker, Bronagh Daly, left her role after 7 wonderful years of services to take up a new position as the Faith and Creativity Lead at Leeds Church Institute (LCI) – a faith-based organization for lifelong learning that works through events, publications, and social media. In her role as Community Participation Coordinator for CAFOD Leeds, Bronagh worked with many people around the Diocese of Leeds and beyond.
Here are just a few messages of thanks that people had for Bronagh: Sheila Gregory: Every CAFOD office should have a Bronagh! She was always there to enthuse me; answer any questions I might have and just support me as a CAFOD volunteer. She was great with children too! Helen Humphreys: Always a pleasure to say nice things about Bronagh. Bronagh is someone who truly lives out her deep faith through her work. Her enthusiasm and commitment are to be commended and I have learned such a lot from her kind and calm way of engaging with all of us. She will be missed so much. Madeline Woods & CAFOD Gappers: Bronagh provided brilliant support for the two CAFOD gappers who found themselves in her care. Both Sophie(Aulton) and I were based at Leeds Trinity University on our year in the programme, and as well as organising school and parish visits, Bronagh would gladly come into the university to support any sessions or events which we ran. We both fondly remember shared lunches on our days in the CAFOD office, and Bronagh’s friendly willingness to show us around and introduce us to everyone! Bronagh, we are both so grateful for your hard work and are sure you’ll do incredible things in your new role. Thank you! Paddy Spiller: When I think of Bronagh I think of someone who is positive, affirming and encouraging. She is always grateful for anything that we do. Chukwuemeka Nwachukwu: Having joined CAFOD I expressed my interest to volunteer in schools. Bronagh was there to provide support. She is a great manager with good organisational skills. Having supervised me in in one of the school visits, I gained confidence and support to go on and put my faith into action through that visit. Her encouragement was helpful, and she looked out for everyone. I wish I worked much longer with her. Rowan Morton-Gledhill: As well as joining in diocesan events like the first ever St Wilfrid’s Way Pilgrimage, Bronagh often used to stop by my office in Hinsley Hall and we would set the world to rights … or at least, I would talk about setting it to rights; as we know, Bronagh actually backed up the talk with years of action! I will miss her cheerfulness and ‘can do’ attitude – and know that wherever she’s moved on to, she’ll keep on lifting the spirits of all around her and making a real impact on people’s lives! Bronagh will be fondly missed at CAFOD and we wish her all the best in her new role at LCI.
Joe Burns, Leeds J&P Commission
Bronagh and I organised a number of events together and enabled the Commission and CAFOD in the Leeds Diocese to complement one another’s work. She has made many valuable contributions to Commission discussions and has been a real help on our SPARK Social Justice project. I hope this will continue- even if she does have a new job!
Ever feel like doing a bake sale or a sponsored run is a bit old hat? Well, no need to despair! Tim Devereaux’s recent beard protest has lifted the vale on whacky ways to raise money for charity! Since March 2020, Tim Devereux has been growing his beard in protest against PM Johnson.
He pledged to keep it growing until Johnson resigned, and he asked people to support this by giving funds to the Trussell Trust for foodbanks, via JustGiving. By the start of July 2022, Tim’s beard was looking deeply impressive!
When Boris Johnson announced his resignation earlier this month, Tim visited his local barber’s shop, to have the beard removed.
So far, the beard protest has raised £756 for Trussell Trust foodbanks. Tim commented: “I am overwhelmed by the response to my fund-raiser – my £200 target has been smashed. I don’t know whether people really don’t like ex-PM Johnson, or whether they just hate beards. Either way, I am hoping the donations will continue!” So, thanks Tim for showing us that fundraising ideas can be as outside the box as we like!
Donations to ‘Tim’s Beard Trimming’ can be made at
This piece is a celebration of Fr Paul Hypher. Fr Paul, a priest from East Anglia who now resides in the Diocese of Leeds, who is celebrating 60 years of ministry.
As part of his celebrations, Fr Paul has set up a Celebration Fund which you can find by using this link: https://celebration.cafod.org.uk/celebrations?p=fd&v=a2S4H000002PiqLUAS All the money that he raises will be going towards CAFOD’s World Food Crisis Appeal. Millions of families are facing a food crisis that could be worse than any we’ve lived through. As many as 811 million people around the world are facing extreme hunger. In Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan, up to 20 million people are fighting for their very survival. They are facing terrifying drought and rocketing food prices. Schools are closed, and the threat of extreme hunger is forcing people to spend their life savings or leave their homes. Fr Paul is aiming to collect £6, 000 for the World Food Crisis Appeal.
The picture below is from CAFOD’s website, it shows what donations can buy: By using his celebration of 60 years of priestly ministry to raise money for CAFOD’s World Food Crisis Appeal, Fr Paul is helping the teams of local volunteers and experts we work with in Ethiopia, in East Africa and around the world, to help people to live through the worst of this devastating food crisis.
Local CAFOD representative, Bronagh said “We were delighted to receive the news about Fr Paul’s kind gesture to support CAFOD as part of his 60th celebration. We hope Father Paul will enjoy his retirement and make new connections with the CAFOD supporters and helpers who live in the Bentham area. Father Paul’s act of solidarity with some of the world’s poorest people is an inspiration to many.” We wish Fr Paul the very best in his retirement and hope his 60th celebration is a lovely day for all.
Previously, I have written about when I was accepted onto the Youth for TPNW 1MSP (Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – Meeting of States Parties) delegation, my thoughts just before our delegation took off for Vienna, and now I’m going to tell you my thoughts now that I’ve returned from it(hopefully you’re not totally sick of hearing from me)! The first thing to say is that I was incredibly lucky to make it at all. Many in our delegation were unable to make it to the MSP in person due to difficulties in obtaining passports, visas, and funding. So once again I’d like to thank the Leeds J&P’s SPARK Project which funded my travel and made it possible for me to attend. Monday I’d never travelled abroad on my own before, and I haven’t been on a plane since pre-covid, and my mind was full of horror stories of people waiting in queues snaking outside the airport due to strikes, so I went a little bit (very) too early to the airport! But the journey was fine. So, other than a short delay to the flight and a slight panic in Vienna before I realised you could change the U-bahn ticket machine to English, I made it to the hostel unscathed by the start of my solo-travel. By the time I made it to the hostel, it was already past 11. I met my roommate, who was also with YouthforTPNW, and went straight to bed, having set my alarm for 6am (not sure about you but that’s pretty much the middle of the night for me). Tuesday After a night of broken sleep in uncomfortable heat – although now that we’re experiencing this heatwave I think I may have been overly dramatic at the time – I set off for the UN.
Youth Delegates to TPNW
Now an expert at the U-bahn, I travelled across the city with the morning commuters. Unfortunately, though my public transport skills had improved, my map reading skills left me walking in circles around the Vienna Centre for a long time. Eventually, having discovered in the group chat that I was far from the only person to have befallen this fate, I followed someone else’s step-by-step instructions (literally) and found the entrance. After passing through airport-style security, we were given our UN badges! We have all confessed that these have become prize possessions that we tell everyone about! And then… we were in!
Tuesday was our main day as YouthforTPNW. The founders of the group had put together an incredible day for us with very little time. The group was created a short 9 months ago and yet they have managed to arrange a full pre-MSP programme as well as a youth delegation to the TPNW 1MSP both in-person and online for those unable to make it. The whole week I was endlessly reminded that young people, when given the space to do it, are able to do whatever we put our minds to. After the day was opened by Lucy Tiller, Chair of YouthforTPWN, we had our first event of the day. This was a talk from Miyata Takashi, a survivor of the Nagasaki bomb. This was an extremely powerful start to the day. It brought home to me, once again, that nuclear disarmament is not a theoretical discussion, it is has real-world consequences. For the rest of the morning we took part in workshops. I attended one on grassroots educational movements, run by SGI (Buddhism in Action for Peace). And one on nuclear weapons and the climate crisis, run by Fridays for Future. These workshops were a great opportunity to learn from each other and to highlight the intersectionality of issues such as nuclear disarmament and climate justice.
Afterwards, we heard from a panel of young women about what the future of youth engagement with the TPNW may, and ought to, look like. This was a very interesting discussion as the panel was very international and the work that each panel member did was very different. The resounding idea that was mentioned again and again was that we must continue to push for a seat at the table where discussions about our future are happening. After lunch we had a group discussion of the policy document that we had created in the weeks leading up to the 1MSP. This discussion was a hybrid between those of us in person in Vienna, and those of us online via Zoom. The final event of the day was Zoom conversation with Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima survivor. She told us her story and about her inspiring journey as an activist. We also watched a short video clip that Alexander Kmentt (President-Designate of the First Meeting of States Parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons) had filmed where he addressed us and our side-MSP events. And so, my first day at the UN was over! It was an incredible day, I learned an enormous amount from everyone that I spoke to, both other youth delegates and people who had been invited in to run workshops and panels.
Wednesday In the morning we met in Kaiserwiese Park for an Advocacy Action Forum. We sat in a circle in the shade and one at a time we said two of the main things we had taken from the experience so far, and one thing we would like the group to do in the future. Afterwards, we made our way across Vienna back to the UN building. On this day, the informal discussion in the park was the only official Youth for TPNW event happening, so we were able to join in with the events of the main MSP. A few others and I attended a panel discussion on Verifying Disarmament. This was a really interesting topic. The panel consisted of: Pavel Podvig, Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, and Zia Mian. It was moderated by Maria Garzon Maceda and was opened by Lucy Duncan (New Zealand Permanent Representative to the United Nations). They highlighted the importance of national identities in the disarmament conversation; that by asking nuclear-weapon-states to disarm is to ask them to entirely change their identity from a ‘nuclear-weapon state’, and also their world view from one where there is a distinction (and an entrenched hierarchy) between nuclear-weapon-states and non-nuclear-weapons-states. In other words, as Zia Mian put it, we are asking for a paradigm shift whereby “nuclear weapons are no longer the centre of nuclear-weapons-states’ universe”. But, despite the ideological difficulties the panellists highlighted, they were also clear in demonstrating that nuclear disarmament is possible. As Pavel Podvig said: there are “no insurmountable technical challenges here, it’s all politics […] all in their heads”. After listening to this panel discussion, I went and watched the main MSP for a while. It felt incredibly cool to sit with the little headphones on which translated what each of the delegates was saying for you. At the end of each section that the delegates discussed, Alexander Kmentt would summarise what had been said and then announce “it is so decided” before tapping his hammer on the table!
Thursday I spent the daytime on Thursday being a tourist – Vienna is a beautiful city and I would definitely recommend a visit! In the evenings Youth for TPNW had been meeting in a pub to have a chance to socialise and to talk to each other properly as the atmosphere in the UN was rather rushed. But on the Thursday night there was the official ICAN party. This was an extremely surreal experience to be surrounded by hundreds of delegates and activists from around the world having a mix of social conversations and others having very in-depth conversations. I spent this evening mostly getting to know more of the other people who had attended with Youth for TPNW. There were still people who I hadn’t had a chance to meet properly as the week had been so non-stop, but by the end of the evening I had met most people, learned a lot about the election process in Norway and the death of indigenous languages in Brazil!
Summary So, as you can probably tell, my time in Vienna was without a doubt the coolest thing I have ever done! I learnt an incredible amount and met so many inspiring people. Again, I would like to thank the SPARK Project for sponsoring me to attend in person and giving me this opportunity.
CAFOD’s new campaign ‘Fix the Food System’ begins with a simple fact: “The global food system is broken. It doesn’t work for those who work the hardest – small farmers – and it’s a major driver of the climate emergency.”
The way that we produce and consume food is wasteful, exploitative and damaging. We produce enough food to ensure that no one in the world is hungry – and yet they are. 800 million people worldwide go hungry. Even here in the UK, in January 2022, 9% of adults were experiencing food insecurity.
As part of the campaign, CAFOD has produced a fact sheet outlining some of the most concerning and important issues with our current food system. The key points are shown in the section at the end.
But the ‘Fix the Food System’ is not just a criticism of the way things are currently done – it’s a call to action! The main change that CAFOD is hoping to see is that the agriculture business is returned to small-scale farmers. In order for us to protect local communities, and the planet, funding must be allocated to support local farmers. That’s why CAFOD is calling on you to email the Foreign Secretary to fix the food system.
If you want to get involved more in the campaign, Parishes across the Diocese of Leeds have been invited to host a 7 Stations: ‘Fix the Food System’ activity this summer.
Local CAFOD worker for the Diocese, Bronagh, said: “The activity works for any group size; it is ideal for between 10 – 30 people and lasts about 1 hour. There is a leader pack and prayer resources available for the activity. This is a really good way to help get more people involved in social justice in parishes and learn more about how CAFOD works to end global food poverty.”
F I N D O U T M O R E A N D D O M O R E
Key facts:-
Around one-third of food is lost/ wasted
Production and transportation of food is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases and is responsible for much of the deforestation of rainforests
Some crops, such as soya, are used mainly for animal feed
Countries such as the UK are overly reliant on imported foods