This was originally scheduled to take place in March but for a variety of reasons this was not possible.Having to re-arrange the date of this event meant that there were less people who were able to go. However, the dozen people who were able to attend had a delightful day – helped by some lovely Spring weather.
The Wood Hall Carmel sisters are so welcoming and have much wisdom to offer – and they do it with such humility and a sense of fun that you can’t help but enjoy yourself. The contributions from the sisters led to much discussion and it was good that, on the first really nice day for a while, there was also space to walk around the beautiful grounds surrounding the monastery to mull things over. The day started with mass and finished with an adapted Vespers that focussed on issues of Justice & Peace – so there was opportunity for communal prayer as well. These Days of Reflection are now becoming a regular part of the schedule of events organised by the Commission. Hopefully, they might invite us back before too long!
Subject to funding, we are aiming to organise another Day of Reflection in the Autumn
The Commission are pleased to announce that we have received some funding from the Society of the Holy Child Jesus order for a follow up project to the Workshop about family poverty that we held in Bradford in February 2018.
The idea behind the project is to examine the same issues we tackled in the workshop – some of the underlying causes of family poverty today and what, as Christians, we should be doing about them. The project will develop a series of meetings for parish groups, older school students or Churches Together groups and then provide skilled facilitators to lead the series of meetings in parish and school contexts.
There are aspects of this project where we need some help.
Developing the Programme of Meetings
This is a paid piece of work. we are looking for someone with knowledge of UK poverty and Catholic Social Teaching who has experience of working with small groups. If you are interested, or know someone else who might be interested in doing this work, please email jandp@dioceseofleeds.org.uk and we will send you further details about what we need doing.
Helping to run the Project
We are in the process of setting up a small group to manage this project. This project steering group will probably meet about 4 times a year over the two year period of the project. There may be a little work to be done in-between meetings. This groups will help decide the direction of the project and ensure that it has maximum impact. If you are in the Leeds Diocese and have an interest in doing this then please email chair.jandp@dioceseofleeds.org.uk
Hosting the programme of Meetings
This is only going to work as a project if there are parishes, schools or Churches Together groups who are prepared to take these meetings on. If you think your parish or group might be willing to take part, then please email jandp@dioceseofleeds.org.uk to express an interest.
Contributed by Jessica Wilkinson, Youth Coordinator for the Leeds Diocese
It will be probably not surprise you to hear that many young people are passionate about justice and fantastic at social action! Social Action is just part of what they have to do to gain their Faith in Action Award from Bishop Marcus. Established by CYMFed (The Catholic Youth Ministry Federation), Faith in Action National Catholic Award Scheme recognises the achievements of young people as they live their faith, serve their communities and grow in understanding of God’s love. Bishop Ralph Heskett, Liaison bishop for young people, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, says in the foreword to the Leader’s guide “It allows youth ministers in the Church to celebrate, recognise and reward all that active young people of faith already give to the Church. It also challenges young people to do more to form themselves, deepen their relationship with God and change the world in which they live.” In the Diocese of Leeds, we have developed an adapted version of the award to best serve our young people and it forms an important part of our youth service provision. This scheme provides opportunities for our young people to be involved in on-going formation and catechesis as they move through their secondary education. The introduction of the first level to coincide with Confirmation preparation at the end of primary school will, we hope, become a stepping stone for their continuing involvement in the Christian life. Earning credits for participating, engaging and leading Prayer, Parish Practice, Pilgrimage and Procession and Social Action, young people reflect on their actions by using Scripture, YouCat and the lives of the saints. It’s currently being piloted in 8 settings around the Diocese of Leeds and the feedback is really positive so far. After a review and revisions, the scheme will be launched ready for September 2018. Watch out for new opportunities to engage young people in Justice and Peace, they will be eager to put their faith into action!
Meet the Diocesan Youth Team
Jade Broadley (Right) lived and worked in the USA for three years with NET Ministries (National Evangelisation Team). Jade joined the team as Youth Officer in July 2017. In her free time Jade serves on the leadership team of Youth 2000. Jessica Wilkinson (Left) has experience in teaching and Lay Chaplaincy. She took up the role of Youth Co-ordinator in January 2017. Jessica comes from a Salesian background and is a member St John Bosco’s lay association, the Salesian Co-operators.
This was the title of the workshop we held last Saturday in the Kala Sangam centre in the central Bradford.
About 50 people turned up on a very wet morning to examine in some depth different aspects of family poverty and what is already being done and what more could be done.
Liz Firth led everyone in an exercise in budgeting on a limited income.
Table groups work on the budgeting exercise
This was just to tease out some of the issues that people living on a low income face every day: hard choices (or little choice) about how their money is spent. We followed this with some short video clips to hear the voices of people who have to live on low incomes.
Some of these voices related problems they had encountered with the new Universal Credit. To follow these up there was a short presentation about Universal Credit from Pauline Crawford of Incommunities.
Incommunities is a Housing Association managing some 20,000 properties –mostly in the Bradford District. In communities, and other Housing Associations, are spending a lot of resources in preparing for the rollout of Universal Credit so that they can help their tenants in whatever way possible to ensure they get the money to which they are entitled. You can understand this concern for tenants when you realise that the average household income across the UK is £38,000, the average in Bradford is about 10,000 less and the average household income for a tenant of Incommunities is £17,300. This rollout of 6 benefits into 1 monthly salary-like payment (where the recipients generally have to budget for the different types of spending) represents a significant risk to their rental income. The pilot areas for Universal Credit have shown that debt levels of tenants increase significantly when they are put onto it. Pauline was also able to provide a number of other disturbing statistics (for instance, about the increases in the number of people being sanctioned with Universal Credit or the commitments that people who are already in work have to make in order to avoid being sanctioned (which results in the loss of all or some benefit for a period of time).
It’s fair to say that most people attending had no idea about many of the ramifications of its introduction or the impact that it is going to have on families in poverty where at least one person is working (which is the majority of families in poverty).
The phased rollout of Universal Credit hits Bradford in June 18, Leeds in Oct and it has already been rolled out in Kirklees and parts of N Yorkshire.
The morning session had been entitled ‘From Awareness to Solidarity’. The questions that people asked Pauline at the end of her presentation showed the solidarity that people were feeling towards the loss of human dignity that people applying for these benefits have to suffer.
In the afternoon we wanted to focus people more towards what they could do and attendees selected two workshops to attend. Working in small groups again, people heard about refugee and migrant action, various mechanisms for supporting families to stay together, dealing with debt and debt advice and aspects of food poverty. These sessions were made possible by people with specialist knowledge and experience making their time available. These included Lucy Irven (the Diocesan Refugee Support worker), Bernie Jackson (Leeds City Council), John Sheen (Manager of the Rockwell Centre on Thorpe Edge estate in Bradford), Dave Paterson (Unity Poverty Action), Pat McGeever (CEO of Health for All, Leeds), Angus McNab (Trussell Trust) and Paul Grafton (SVP). We are very grateful to them all.
After this Tom Chigbo (organiser for Leeds Citizens and parishioner in the cathedral parish of Our Lady of Unfailing Help) and Dave Paterson spent time encouraging people to take their action up a level by speaking to the people with the power to make lasting changes – MP’s and local councillors.
people add their action commitments to a map of the Diocese of Leeds
Prior to a final liturgy people were asked to spend five minutes reflecting on what actions they could personally commit to do as a result of coming along to this workshop.
As part of the final liturgy people came up and stuck these onto a giant map of the Diocese.
Although many of the things we found out during the course of the morning were quite shocking, the afternoon encouraged everyone that they could play a part in helping to make lasting change happen.
The middle of January this year saw some very wintery weather, with rain, wind and sleet seeming to take it turns. And this was the week that we in Newman parish had offered to help with providing a night shelter for asylum seekers who might otherwise have had spent these freezing nights on the streets. We were not sure how it would work out and some of us were a little nervous about it.
Six local churches were involved in the project which was set-up by WYDAN, the West Yorkshire Destitute Asylum Seekers Network. Cross Gates Methodist church provided the accommodation, and with other local churches – St James Manston, Christchurch Methodist/ URC Halton, Newman parish, and Colton Methodists provided all that was needed. In total an astonishing 84 people volunteered to help. Others donated food, clothing, and cash, – £685 from Newman churches alone. The plan was to provide the shelter for just one week, after which another group of churches in Leeds would take over the task, in this way hopefully providing safe places to sleep through the worst of the winter.
On the first day our nine guests were welcomed by volunteers and helped to feel at home in the church hall – now transformed with beds, a dining table, settees, and board games. Each evening delicious meals appeared from the adjoining kitchen. – The Punjabi curry cooked by our own Michael Clayton on Wednesday night was a real feast. Teams of volunteers provided friendship and company during the evenings, some stayed overnight, others arrived each morning to prepare breakfast and packed lunches. A dentist offered free dental treatment for our guests. There were many donations of clothes and money.
Our guests make no mistake, are in a terrible situation. They have often have suffered danger and great loss to get here and the future is an unknown, even supposing they get permission to stay in this country. Most speak little English, yet they need to find their way through complex appeals procedures, helped if they are lucky by an overworked charity sector. Some asylum seekers are highly skilled and educated but all are forbidden to work and survive on just £5 a day from the Home Office. And, invaluable as schemes such as ours are, imagine depending upon such make-shift and uncertain shelter week after week. Their treatment is simply shocking, inhuman. Yet, in spite of all this, there was an amazing spirit of joy in that church hall. Both guests and volunteers gave so much of themselves in friendship and cheerfulness. The kindness of God felt present.
At the beginning of the week, we were a crowd of strangers, – men from Syria, Eritrea, Iraq, Pakistan and Sudan… volunteers from different Christian traditions…… we were Moslems, Christians and those of no faith.- And yet, out of this mix, a remarkable atmosphere of friendship, and at times of pure celebration, emerged. It was such a pleasure and an honour to be part of that brief community.
Revd Susan Greenhart of Cross Gates Methodist church recorded these comments from our guests: “This is the first time I’ve felt safe in a long time.” “It is good to share food together.” “I live this day. No past. No future. All is gone. The future? Only God knows. Now is all I have.” “I am happy for this place. It is good. But family. I need family.” “My heart is warm when I meet good people. A week passes. I have to say goodbye, and my heart hurts.”
Some of our volunteers offered these thoughts –
‘It surprised me that in spite of everything they’d gone through, there was no bitterness. In fact there was a feeling of peace. I was so impressed and moved by them.’
‘I was talking to one of our guests in the middle of the night as he couldn’t sleep , he left me with a sense of his hopelessness. A young man with his life ahead but with no plans and no hope, can’t be right. ‘
‘What struck me about the men I met was their very real gratitude for what they were receiving, and in receiving they wanted to share. ‘
‘I was asked if I could take four men to Dewsbury for urgent dental treatment on Saturday. I was happy to do this and the trip went very smoothly and everyone received the treatment needed at Dewsbury town hall where the dental clinic was set up. I will be more than happy to do it again.’
As I said goodbye to one of our guests we shook hands, and he said ‘Goodbye, my sister. That said it all for me.
WYDAN hopes to extend the Night shelter scheme next year. To find out more go to www.wydan.org.uk.
Also, of course, they are always grateful to receive donations.
The Diocesan Refugee Support Group meeting at Hinsley Hall was packed out last night with over 100 people squeezing into the room from all parts of the Diocese, including Huddersfield, Mytholmroyd, Settle and Knaresbrough – as well as parishes more local to Hinsley Hall. It was an opportunity to take stock and consider what more individuals and parishes can do.
The meeting was organised by the part time facilitator – Lucy Irven – and was led by two of the Steering Group: Carol Hill, Director of Catholic Care, and John Battle, Chair of the J&P Commission.
Sean Ryan, Caritas Salford
Carol introduced Sean Ryan from Caritas Salford. He is the National Coordinator for the Caritas Social Action Network (CSAN) of the Community Sponsorship Scheme. It was a parish in the Salford Diocese that first took up this scheme. It enables church communities to take responsibility for sponsoring a refugee family until they become fully integrated into the local community. There were some very positive stories both in terms of the integration of families into the local community and in terms of bringing all sorts of people in parishes together to share the work and, in so doing, making their parish communities stronger. Is this something that might work in your parish? – This was the challenge that he posed to everyone in the meeting.
John Battle then introduced several organisations working in the Leeds Diocese area who need additional volunteer support. They were each given 5 minutes to describe what sort of work they did and what additional help they needed. John stressed that, rather than thinking that it was up to everyone at the meeting to individually volunteer it would be so much more powerful if they were to take information back to their local church community and to personally pass it onto at least 3 other people.
Brian Hamill
Brian Hamill from Wakefield City of Sanctuary described the opposite situation to the well-organised Community Sponsorship scheme. Destitute asylum seekers have no recourse to public funds and Brian was keen to stress the immorality of leaving people without any security of accommodation or food. He felt this was an area where the Catholic Church could take more of a leading role. City of Sanctuary provides all sorts of services for such asylum seekers – services that are repeated in other parts of the diocese through the efforts of secular and church organisations such as the WYDAN (West Yorkshire Destitute Asylum Seekers Network) winter accommodation scheme or Inn Churches in Bradford.
Another organisation working with failed asylum seekers is St Monica’s Housing and its work was described by John McLaughlin, Commission member, and Sheelagh Pickles, from John Henry Newman parish. They described how they already manage one church property that can house 6 failed asylum seeking women and they are hoping to obtain another property soon in the Harehills area of Leeds. This organisation provides accommodation for up to six months to give the women time to re-apply for refugee status and generally to help sort out their affairs.
Through the Refugee Council presence in Leeds two former asylum seekers told a little of their stories. One has now been in the country for 16 years – but only in the last three years has she obtained leave to remain. The other was on the verge of suicide and it was only the kindness of a GP that enabled her to turn a corner and keep going.
Julie Linley
Julie Linley (another J&P Commission member) briefly recounted the work with refugees that takes place at the St Vincent’s Support Centre on York Road in Leeds. This work is in addition to the over 100 hundred refugee families that have been helped by individual parish SVP conferences in the Leeds Diocese over the last 12 months. There are English language lessons, legal advice and help with filling out all manner of forms – as well as helping people with more general queries.
Dot and Helen
Dot and Helen described the work of the Conversation Club. It meets every week at Mill Hill Chapel in central Leeds on a Thursday afternoon. Refugees and asylum seekers can drop in and have a friendly conversation, in English, with a group of local volunteers. It is an opportunity to be somewhere where they do not have to explain themselves but can have or join in a conversation or play a game that will help them to develop their English skills in a relaxed and, often, fun setting.
For further information about any of these or other actions that parishes could take then please get in touch with the Diocesan Refugee Support Group Facilitator, whose role is administered through Catholic Care :
We asked people who attended our Live Simply Workshop in June 2017 if they had done anything following it. At the start of January Michael Emly gave an update from Our Lady of Kirkstall parish in NW Leeds. Here, Janet Almond provides an update from Good Shepherd Parish in Mytholmroyd.
As with everything, it is getting started that is the initial hurdle. However, as a community, and on an individual basis, members of the Good Shepherd parish have and continue to participate in a number of activities and have made a number of changes that move us in the direction of living more simply, more sustainably and more in solidarity with poor people across the world. We may not have formally signed up to the Live Simply Award scheme as yet but it is a definite intent.
These actions have included
– Installing solar panels to help put energy back in to the system.
– A parishioner has planted and nurtures an orchard on what would otherwise have been a small redundant piece of land beside the car park for the church.
– There is a policy to use/change to Fair Trade and Eco friendly products within the Parish Centre.
– The children are holding fund raising events to create a (CAFOD) virtual village, with chickens, donkeys etc.
– Parishioners are involved in the Ebenezer Food Bank in Halifax and with St Augustine’s. This assists refugees.
Others help with ‘pay as you can’ cafes and soup kitchens in the valley.
Food bank talk at Good Shepherd Parish Centre
In June, a parishioner and volunteer from the Ebenezer Food bank came and gave a presentation about the food bank, and the work involved.
The parish centre toilets have been ‘twinned’ following fund raising by the children and young people of the parish. Toilet twining is through a charity (toilettwinning.org) linked to Tearfund. They provide toilets/latrines/sanitation/hygiene education in Asia & Africa. For £60 you can twin with one latrine, £240 with a block (in an education centre or similar). The organisation sends you a framed photograph of the toilet you’ve funded – one of our Parish Centre ones is in Guatemala.
Another thing we’ve done is arrange for battery recycling from the church. A company called Valpak provides boxes and collection free of charge.
This update on one parish’s work towards the Live Simply Award has been provided by Michael Emly
What will help the “average parishioner” engage with the Church’s social teaching? What will build unity in a parish formed by the merger of 3 formerly independent church communities? How can we make Pope Francis’ teaching in ‘Laudato Si’ better known? These were three of the aspirations that led the parish of Our Lady of Kirkstall in northwest Leeds to decide to work towards certification by CAFOD as a “Live Simply” parish.
CAFOD’s website (https://cafod.org.uk/Campaign/How-to-campaign/Livesimply-award) sets out very clearly what is involved in the Live Simply award. A parish (or school) commits to living SIMPLY, SUSTAINABLY with creation, and IN SOLIDARITY with people in poverty. At the beginning of the process, an action plan is drawn up of how the parish will put these principles into practice. The plan should include not only activities already in place but also new developments or projects around each of these themes. Once the parish feels that it has made sufficient progress and can demonstrate this fact, then it invites CAFOD to visit and hopefully validate the award.
In Our Lady of Kirkstall, the parish CAFOD Group began the process in Summer 2016 by discussing the Live Simply scheme with our parish priest, Fr. Pat Smythe, and then taking a paper to our Parish Council. Everybody could see the opportunities for parish renewal and growth and a decision was taken to embark on the Live Simply journey. In March 2017, members of the parish council spoke at all 6 Masses in the parish and a questionnaire was handed out to everyone at Mass in order to establish where members of the parish already stood on a number of matters, including recycling, involvement in “green” issues and how they travelled to Mass. Two open meetings in the early summer provided an opportunity for anybody who wished to feed into the process of drawing up an action plan, and the parish formally registered with CAFOD in September 2017.
Our Lady of Kirkstall could already demonstrate its substantial commitment to the theme of living in solidarity. As well as supporting CAFOD and the SVP, our parish community provides the base for 2 registered charities, one engaged in healthcare in South India (the Sylvia Wright Trust) and one providing wide-ranging support for development in East Timor (the Peter Trust). However, many in the parish had been very moved by the plight of refugees from Syria and we decided that we wanted to build an ongoing commitment to welcoming and supporting refugees Building on our current practice of organising collections for various charities active locally, we hope also to provide encouragement and opportunities for people to engage at a more personal level. For the theme of living simply, we decided to produce a special monthly bulletin which would promote three “practical challenges” for that month and give a couple of short quotations from Laudato Si’. This bulletin also provides an opportunity to communicate the wider vision and involve parishioners in the various projects.
A Bee ‘Hotel’
It is however on the theme of living sustainably that our plan is starting to become really exciting and showing potential for bringing the parish together in all sorts of new ways. Our plan always envisaged developing the use of the land around our 3 churches in order to bring people closer to creation. As we started to draw up firm plans, we discovered that Leeds is one of 8 cities involved in a national project called Urban Buzz which aims to increase the number of urban habitats for pollinating insects.
See https://www.buglife.org.uk/urban-buzz. Such insects are essential to the life-cycle of many crops and garden plants, but the countryside no longer offers such a hospitable environment because of agricultural monocultures and the use of pesticides. In contrast, urban parks and gardens already provide many plants rich in pollen. Urban Buzz works with schools and community groups to develop these and other spaces with this in mind. Planting native plant species such as primroses, bluebells, ox-eye daisies and campions is particularly encouraged. What this means in practice can be illustrated through the plans for just one of our churches, which has a plot approx. 20m x 5m down one side of the land between the church and the road. Currently, this is under grass and one end is shaded by a number of established deciduous trees. We would like to make this a more attractive feature for the community while providing a better habitat for insects. And for the changes to be sustainable, the maintenance requirements need to be low. After discussion with the project officer from Urban Buzz, our provisional plan includes:
Planting bulbs (snowdrops, crocus and English bluebells) under the trees.
Clearing an area of grass in the more open part to sow a small wild flower meadow.
Stopping mowing close to the boundary wall and allowing ferns, etc. to grow to provide cover for insects. Perhaps add some hellebores.
Putting up “bug hotels” to provide shelter for invertebrates.
Building compost bins to allow garden waste to be recycled.
An appeal for volunteers identified several individuals who would be interested in helping with this project. Discussions with the parish uniformed organisations (scouts, guides and their younger equivalents) are also proving fruitful and we plan to identify specific projects or activities which each group can undertake as part of their work for their badges. And our two parish primary schools are both keen to become involved.
The “gardening project” is already demonstrating its potential for bringing together parishioners, schools and uniformed organisations with a common vision. Hopefully, it will increase our awareness of the beauty and complexity of God’s creation and of our own responsibility to support and maintain the natural world. Pope Francis writes: “Our insistence that each human being is an image of God should not make us overlook the fact that each creature has its own purpose. None is superfluous.” (Laudato Si’, 84) Similarly, the 3 strands of the wider Live Simply programme are making us more aware of the interconnectedness of Catholic social teaching and helping us to understand what a gift we have received in the teaching of the current pope. “Everything is connected. Concern for the environment needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.” (Laudato Si’, 91)
For Our Lady of Kirkstall, this is still an early stage on our journey. Whether we will realise all our ambitions remains to be seen. But we hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will inspire and teach us along the way.
The Wood Hall Carmel sisters are so welcoming and have much wisdom to offer – and they do it with such humility and a sense of fun that you can’t help but enjoy yourself. The contributions from the sisters led to much discussion and it was good that, on the first really nice day for a while, there was also space to walk around the beautiful grounds surrounding the monastery to mull things over. The day started with mass and finished with an adapted Vespers that focussed on issues of Justice & Peace – so there was opportunity for communal prayer as well. These Days of Reflection are now becoming a regular part of the schedule of events organised by the Commission. Hopefully, they might invite us back before too long!![\"Diocesan](\"https://www.leedsjp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Jessica_and_Jade_youth_services-400x533px.jpg\")
