We are working with Church Action on Poverty to produce a series of 5 meetings to be undertaken in parish groups to explore issues of family poverty.
We now have drafts of the materials and they are being reviewed by the Project Steering Group. We are hoping to try out the programme on a pilot basis in the Craven district of N Yorkshire, Bradford and Leeds, starting later in the Autumn.
Many parishes already do a lot to help low income families in their area through SVP conferences, the UCM and other organisations. We commonly talk about the ‘Catholic Family’ and family values are very important in the life of the Church. One of the biggest threats the Commission sees to those values today is the strain put on families by having to work in insecure jobs where you do not know from one week to the next whether you will have enough money to properly feed and clothe your children. Yes – this is Yorkshire in 2018 that we are talking about. Ask an SVP member if you find it difficult to believe.
This set of meetings is about exploring the dignity of the human person and getting to grips with the public policy and systems that deny families that dignity and considering what we can do as Church to change the situation.
We welcome expressions of interest from other parishes – just email the Justice and Peace office and someone will get in touch.
We have recently had some good news in respect of funding (for a change). The Diocese has agreed to provide £5,000 in this financial year and the following financial year to support our work.
On top of the grant from the Society of the Holy Child Jesus for the parish Family Poverty programme that we are developing, it means that we can start work on some additional projects as we move into the Autumn.
Equally important, this show of support for the work of Justice & Peace puts the Commission in a better position when seeking funding from external foundations and other organisations – it is often a stipulation that some level of matched funding is provided by the parent organisation. Some of the key work that we do is an ongoing level of communication about what is happening within our diocese or drawing your attention to things happening at a national or international level – principally through the website and newsletter. However, we have changed the way we work so that most of our activities are ‘projects’. By budgeting for each project separately we can more easily apply for external funding to support specific pieces of work.
In the current financial year, we are also expecting to receive around £1,500 in regular donations from individuals – up from £250 two years ago. We are very grateful for this show of support from a relatively small number of individuals within the diocese. Again, this level of financial support from individuals across the Diocese is important when applying for external funding.
Our Treasurer, Steve Higgins, comments, “In the last twelve months the finances of the Commission seem to have turned a corner. I am hopeful that our income might actually match our expenditure in the current financial year! Of course, if we had more then we could do more – so I would be delighted to hear from anyone else interested in setting up a standing order in favour of the Commission. You can download the form from our website. If you cannot commit to making a regular donation I am also very happy to receive one-off donations towards our work. Again, if you look on our website you will find our banking details to do an online transfer or you can always send a cheque to the Commission’s office at Hinsley Hall in Leeds.”
As the long Summer holidays start and people go on holiday, contributions to foodbanks tend to dip. However, this is going on whilst, at the same time there is a year on year increase in the demands being made on foodbanks.
Towards the end of June, the Leeds evening Post ran a story with information from the Leeds Food Aid Network (FAN), though the story could be repeated across other areas in Yorkshire. The two main foodbanks (Leeds North and West and Leeds South and East) are down to about two weeks supply of food.
The main reasons cited by FAN for this situation are an increase in food prices, delays in benefits and benefits sanctions and an increase in the number of people in insecure work. These were all factors that were mentioned at our family poverty workshop in February of this year
The other big discussion point at our February workshop was to do with the rollout of Universal Credit. At the time this was expected in Leeds and Bradford in June but since then it has been put back to October. However, based on the experience in other parts of the country, many FAN members are concerned that this will lead to increased demand for support from foodbanks as there are many stories of payment delays and other complications with the introduction of Universal Credit.
FAN are not the only ones concerned about it either. The Feeding Bradford network has run workshops focusing on this and the Leeds Church Institute have organised an event for 01 August . At this event they are also launching a Directory with details of referral agencies and where people can go for more information.
Feeding Bradford recently published the results of a survey they undertook in the Spring among food provision service users and organisations in the wider Bradford area. Comments from service users included “recurring themes of a lack of money, and the inflexibility, unsuitability or impenetrability of benefit arrangements – with the move to universal credit a particular issue for several. Having to spend 35 hours per week looking for work to qualify for UC was impossible for some, particularly those without full-time computer access.”
Of the 27 projects who responded to the question about the ability of their service to continue to meet demand, only 3 felt secure. Many talked about a rise in demand (even in ‘affluent’ areas), an increase in destitution and homelessness and more complex needs being harder to address.
Church Action on Poverty have just started a campaign in relation to Universal Credit. They report that in areas where Universal Credit has been rolled out, foodbanks and other food aid providers report a surge in the numbers of people pushed into greater debt, destitution and hunger as a result of delays, errors, a lack of flexibility and adequate support.
Church Action on Poverty have also just released a social impact report about their involvement with a scheme called ‘Your Local Pantry’. They have been running this scheme in the Greater Manchester area for the last couple of years with partners. The idea is a simple one. A ‘pantry’ is set up in a local area and people are invited to become members. Membership costs somewhere between £2.50 and £3.50 per week and for this amount members can choose up to at least ten items from what is available (with the average shopping basket often worth in excess of £15). The membership fees are ploughed back directly into the pantry and used to finance fresh produce which is available for members at no extra charge. The food is provided by Fareshare a charity that distributes ‘food waste’ from industry surpluses. It is an interesting idea that some parishes might want to investigate for their own local area.
You can read more about this scheme and download the full report if you are interested by going to the relevant page of the Church Action on Poverty website: http://www.church-poverty.org.uk/pantry
Various walks have now taken place in support of the international Share the Journey campaign, managed in the UK by CAFOD. Last month we highlighted the plans for one walk – by the Garforth Refugee Support Group walking from Garforth to the Home Office centre on Kirkstall Road in Leeds.
Most of them completed the 11 miles to the Home Office.
On the 10th of June 2018 Paddy Spiller and Maria Beckwith from Our Lady and St Joseph, Aire Valley, joined with members from their parish and took part in the Share the Journey Walk.
The walk started from the Bingley Fire Station, then via 3 Rise Locks and along the canal bank to Roberts Park, Saltaire. They shared a picnic together around the bandstand.
Year 8 pupils at Holy Family School also took part in a walk.
Sara Lambert, Lay Chaplain at the school in Carlton, said “We went to Goathland and Whitby and we walked 12 miles together. There was 25 of us so in total we walked 300 miles! The pupils loved taking part.”
One year 8 student said “I don’t know how refugees do what they do as I found the walk itself hard for me!”
On 8 July, over fifteen supporters of CAFOD at St Stephen’s in Skipton contributed 128 miles to the challenge as they completed a walk down a sunny canal side to Silsden, where they met with another group of Sheila Gregory, one of the walkers, said: “All of us felt the need to walk in solidarity with refugees fleeing war, persecution and poverty around the world.
“In a poignant moment, we stopped at the memorial to the Polish airmen and stood in silence to remember all who have died far from their homes.
“We also carried with us a Lampedusa Cross, made by a carpenter on the Island of Lampedusa from the wood of a wrecked boat which had carried refugees.”
These gestures of solidarity with refugees around the world are testament to the compassion and desire to ‘do something’ by many people across the Leeds Diocese.
Update on the Community Sponsorship Scheme for Refugees
On Thursday 28th June, Carol Hill (Director of Catholic Care) attended the National Community Sponsorship Co-ordination Group meeting. She reports: “The news is very encouraging indeed as the swell of enthusiasm for Community Sponsorship increases AND the Catholic Church is the dominant player. There are now 38 Catholic Groups who have formally begun the process to become a Community Sponsor.”
Carol commented that “Community Sponsorship is a unique opportunity for communities to welcome and re-settle refugee families, putting local parish communities at the heart of a family’s journey to a new life, helping them to rebuild their lives.”
If you and/or your parish is interested in becoming a Community Sponsor, please contact the following members of the Diocesan Refugee Support Group.
Carol Hill at carol.hill@catholic-care.org.uk or Lucy Irven at LIrven@catholic-care.org.uk
This parish is now well into carrying out the plan developed and presented to the Parish Council in the middle of last year. Michael Emly writes:
Since January, steady progress has been maintained in implementing our Action Plan. Our planning group continues to meet at approximately 2 monthly intervals and members remain enthusiastic. Their contribution to the project has been amazing.
Living Simply
Every month we produce a “Live Simply” bulletin on a specific theme. For example, the April edition provided a “crib sheet” of key themes in Laudato Si’ in order to make the encyclical’s contents more familiar to our parishioners. Each bulletin also suggests 3 small practical actions that people could do – these seem to have been very well received and acted upon.
Living Sustainably A lot of effort has been put into the “Gardening Project”:
• We have successfully liaised with Urban Buzz, submitted a plan of work to them, and have in consequence already received both bulbs and wildflower seed, free of charge.
• The March edition of our Live Simply Parish Bulletin focussed on the project and shared our plans for each site. A request for volunteers attracted a good response and we have been working together regularly on a monthly basis in order to tidy up the grounds of each of our 3 churches in turn.
• The Uniformed Organisations have also been active and the troughs they planted with bulbs to enhance the entrance to Holy Name Church at Easter have now been replanted with summer flowers.
An audit has also been conducted about the use of disposable crockery and cutlery and this is being followed up in more detail. Living in solidarity
The parish has continued to support a number of charities including the Sylvia Wright Trust, the Peter Trust and CAFOD as well as the collection of foodstuffs for the SVP and a local foodbank. Lenten Alms this year were dedicated to the Medaille Trust; in May a speaker visited the parish and told us about the work of the Trust at every Sunday Mass. Clothes and other items were collected to send to Malawi with Fr. Emmanuel. Our parish initiative of providing a homework club for refugee children has attracted volunteers and is running weekly in school term-time.
Celebrating Live Simply
To celebrate all that has been achieved, a special colour bulletin was produced for the first weekend in July, providing a retrospective in pictures of the past year.
Good Shepherd Church Community, Mytholmroyd
The community at Good Shepherd Church are just getting going. They met on 2nd July and Janet Almond outlines their plans as follows: –
Six of us attended our planning meeting and together we completed the template provided by CAFOD with an Action Plan based upon discussions at previous meetings, summarised as follows: To Live Simply: the organ and flower festival, inspired by the Beatitudes, has provided a spiritual and reflective beginning to our Live Simply journey. It involved nearly 50% of the
regular Sunday congregation and participants tested unknown skills out with their comfort zones. Visitors came from near and far, from many faiths and none.
To Live Sustainably with Creation: our main action will be to reduce waste, as a community and as individuals, raising awareness in users of the Parish Centre and in parishioners. Progress will be measured by questionnaire and by the children reporting on personal and family activities by way of stickers that with time it is hoped will fill a heart shaped poster.
To Live in Solidarity with the Poor: we will involve the parish community, young and not so young, in ongoing support of local charities and initiatives for the homeless, poor and hungry and of global causes including the CAFOD virtual village and the Hope Community Village.
Our journey will include a Liturgical celebration, involving as many of the community, our parish and our neighbours in the Deanery and Hebden Royd as possible.
There will in addition be ongoing initiatives, under all three of the main headings, including supporting and raising awareness of Fairtrade and regular bulletin suggestions and recommendations drawn from the many suggested by parishioners.
As previously reported, the Commission has obtained a grant from the Society of the Holy Child Jesus to follow up our workshop about Family Poverty with a programme of small group meetings suitable for use in parishes and other small groups.
We are delighted to announce that we are partnering with Church Action on Poverty (CAP) to develop the programme of 4-6 meetings. The Project Steering Group has held an initial workshop with CAP and they will be developing the materials over the course of the Summer.
Our aim is to have the materials ready to try out in a limited number of parishes starting in October. After ironing out any wrinkles in the programme our plan is to make it available more widely from the start of 2019.
So far, two parishes have volunteered to work through the programme on a pilot basis.
Pope Francis launched the ‘Share the Journey’ campaign in September 2017.
The campaign is about getting world leaders to endorse new UN agreements on refugees and migration – and they are meeting at the UN in September where there is an opportunity to do this.
There are petitions to sign and, in particular, the campaign is asking church communities across the world to ‘share the journey’ that refugees and migrants are forced into by undertaking a walk of their own. The hope of the organisers is that altogether, the walk will enable them to say that supporters of the campaign have walked around the world (24,900 miles)!
In the UK CAFOD is a leading partner in this campaign. If your community is really stretched, then the least level of support would be to encourage people to sign the petition to the UK Government asking them to support these new UN agreements.
The petition urges the UK Government and other world leaders to develop a united, global response which addresses at a fundamental level many of the problems that we see today:
A much more powerful witness would be to organise a ‘Share the Journey’ walk in your community – or with neighbouring churches or Churches Together groups.
CAFOD have a range of resources to help you do this – ranging from how to organise a walk, health and safety advice through to prayers that could be used in parish masses and other services.
The walk doesn’t have to be a gruelling ramble! – some communities have just walked around their church. There are all sorts of ways in which you could show your solidarity with refugees and migrants across the world and play an active part in this campaign.
We are particularly promoting this action this month because June 18-24 is national Refugee Week – the UK’s largest festival celebrating the contribution, creativity and resilience of refugees.
Several walks are in the process of being organised within the Leeds Diocese.
GARFORTH REFUGEE SUPPORT GROUP ‘SOLIDARITY WALK’
Thursday 21 June 09:30 – 14:30
One definite arrangement has been put in place by the ecumenical Garforth Refugee Group (which includes parishioners from St Benedict’s) with support from a new refugee support group that has started up in Newman parish in East Leeds. They have organised a ‘Walk of Solidarity’ for Thursday June 21st.The full walk is about 11 miles and takes up much of the day. It will go from St Benedict’s Church and the walking bit of it will finish at the Home Office on Kirkstall Road. So, they are encouraging people to join with them for sections of the walk if they feel unable to or cannot take the time to do the whole walk.
One of the organisers, Dot Read, commented that “This is not a sponsored or protest event but simply a way of registering our support for refugees”.
The route and stages of the walk are as follows:-
1. St Benedict’s – St Theresa’s (3.5 miles)
2. Break at St Theresa’s approx 10:45-11:00
3. St Theresa’s – St Vincent’s Support Centre (3 miles) – where many refugees go for help & support
4. Lunch at St Vincent’s approx 12 noon-12:30 (An Excellent café!)
5. St Vincent’s – Waterside Court (3.5 miles)
6. Bus into Leeds City Centre and visit to the Conversation Club for Refugees at Mill Hill Chapel
After the lunch break the group will walk onto the Home Office Visa and Immigration Centre located at Waterside Park on Kirkstall Road – another place that asylum seekers and refugees will be familiar with. This is where the formal walk will end. However, everyone is invited to take the bus back into the centre of Leeds and join the English Conversation Club for Refugees at Mill Hill Chapel (in City Square) for tea and cake.
Note that all times are approximate!
If you want more detailed information then please email bdflynn@outlook.com
by Sophie Aulton the CAFOD Step into the Gap volunteer at Leeds Trinity University.
I have recently returned from a two-and-a-half-week trip to El Salvador and Nicaragua as part of my gap year on CAFODs Step into the Gap programme for 18-30 year olds. Before the trip, I had few expectations never having visited a country in Latin America. I could only read up on CAFODs notes on the history and current situation in Central America to prepare myself for the visit. The training days filled with warnings of dengue fever, sexual assault, armed robbery and gang violence made me slightly uneasy about making the 10,500-mile trip to some of the most dangerous and gang ridden areas in the world.
To my utter bemusement, upon arrival and the subsequent days I spent in El Salvador and Nicaragua I did not feel unsafe once. This meant I was able to concentrate on what I had been sent out to do: experience the work that CAFOD does first hand.
Our time in El Salvador was split into two. The main chunk of our time was spent in the rural area of Guaymango. There we were able to experience life with families who had received help from CAFODs partner Solidarity Services Association CVX. All the families were farmers who had been struggling to produce enough food to eat and sell. This was largely due to the loss in traditional farming techniques and crops. Solidarity Services Association CVX was able to help the farmers by teaching them farming techniques that had worked for many years and giving them traditional crops that could survive in the harsh monsoon climate of El Salvador. In addition, families were also given assistance with their bee keeping. Before this help, the bee hives were hard to get into, and the honey comb could form naturally meaning that the process of getting honey was slower and less efficient. By giving the farmers bee keeping frames, more honey could be generated, meaning the farmers were able to sell more honey. The rest of our time in San Salvador was spent with CAFODs partners in the city, one of whom was a group on nuns that lived in a gang ridden area. One of the projects we saw was the ‘Saturday Club’. This was a place where children could go to do activities such as dance, sport, and music. The idea of the club is to build up a sense of community whilst preventing children being on the street and exposed to gang violence and the pressures of joining a gang. Another project was a weekly occupational therapy group for women of the same area. When we visited, they were making cards. The activity only used simple materials like ribbon, card and wrapping paper with pictures on to decorate, however the affect that making something so simple was immediately obvious. When the women were making their cards, there was endless chatter (all in Spanish of course!). We immediately saw the sense of community that the meetings created, and the effect that it had on the women personally. Each person was so proud of what they made, some would give them to family members, others would use them for decoration in their own home, it didn’t matter what they would do with the cards afterwards, the process of making one item was enough to bring joy to all of them.
We spent less time in Nicaragua. However, we were able to spend several days with two of CAFODs partners, John XXIII Institute and Mary Barreda Association. With the John XXIII institute we saw the positive effects that loans had on individuals and families. The way the loans worked was simple. An amount of money would be borrowed, and an agreement would be made as to how frequent and how much the repayments were. In addition to the flexibility of the loan, only half of the amount that was borrowed had to be repaid, meaning that individuals were not lumbered with debts they could not repay. One man we met who had used John XXIII loans had been able to open a shop with his mother. The money they borrowed had been used to buy a fridge and a freezer, with these they bought and sold things like milk and cheese from their own house, and had a profitable business, and source of income.
The Mary Barreda Association was set up to help with Nicaragua’s prominent sexual exploitation and trafficking issue. Marry Barreda Association helps young women who are being sexually abused, exploited, or in a situation of prostitution. They are able to work to remove them safely from these situations, then follow that up with help to give them skills that provide opportunities for employment. Their work also centred on young people, making them protagonists combatting physical,.psychological and sexual violence Returning from the trip made me reflect on just how much I had learnt from these experiences. Actually seeing CAFOD’s work in action made me realise the very real connection between those fundraising in the UK and the people that were being helped on the other side of the world. It forcefully slotted into place the process that CAFOD goes through: building relationships with people and partners to ensure that the best possible outcome is achieved and ensuring that people’s donations are going to projects that will carry on helping people as much as possible.
I feel extremely privileged to have been given the opportunity to go to Central America, not only because of the people I encountered, but the skills I learned when I was there. I can now say that I have been in multi lingual meetings discussing project development and outcomes of funding! I have worked through a translator while still having a personal encounter with individuals; I have represented a charity overseas, acting as a mouth piece for people both in the UK and then back home for those from El Salvador. It was a truly unique and enlightening experience that has allowed me to grow as a person.
We are working with Church Action on Poverty to produce a series of 5 meetings to be undertaken in parish groups to explore issues of family poverty.
