This year marks CAFOD’s 60th Anniversary as an official charity. The very first Family Fast Day in 1958 was organised by 4 friends (Jacquie Stuyt, Evelyn White, Nora Warmington and Elspeth Orchard), raised over £6000 for the Dominica Mother and Baby Clinic. Just four years later, in 1962, CAFOD became an official charity. For the […]
CAFOD
14 Feb – CAFOD’s Lenten Walk Against Hunger
By Matthew Maslen It will be Ash Wednesday in a fortnight. This year, CAFOD’s Lenten campaign is the Walk Against Hunger; inviting people to walk 200km during Lent to raise awareness and funds for CAFOD’s nutrition projects. The campaign is particularly focusing on Sierra Leone. Around the world there are 200 million children living at […]
08 Dec – Living Laudato Si’: Your Planet and Your Parish.
Sr Margaret Atkins, Boarbank Hall. Around fifty people were involved in a recent Zoom weekend from Boarbank Hall on the theme Living Laudato Si’: Your Planet and Your Parish. It aimed to inspire, inform, connect and encourage anyone wanting to engage in practical and prayerful projects in response to the encyclical, especially through parish groups […]
21 Jul – J&P Diocesan Annual Gathering
By John Battle, Commission Chair On the 24th June 2020 we held the annual meeting of our Leeds Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission as an open “gathering” on ” Zoom” to announce the refocussing of our project work; responding as a Diocese to the climate crisis, developing our parish “Poverty in the UK” workshop pack […]
02 Mar – St Mary & St Michael, Settle, obtain Live Simply Award
Two years ago, it took just a couple of parishioners to introduce LiveSimply at a parish meeting and then speak about it at Mass to get the parish started. From the talks at Mass a group of 12 people volunteered interest and started by reflecting on all the things the parish were already doing. And […]
20 Jan – Being a Schools Volunteer with CAFOD
Who are you? I’m Julie Bowyer and I live in Saint John Mary Vianney Parish (SJMV). I am a retired sales manager, hold a volunteer position as school governor at my local Catholic primary and am an active parish member at SJMV.What attracted you to becoming a CAFOD schools volunteer? I have always been interested […]
01 Sep – Getting a CAFOD Live Simply Award is the start of something – not the end
By Trish Sandbach, St Benedict\’s parish Garforth. We have been a Live Simply parish for over two years and the award is something that continues to inspire action in our parish. Most of the activities we undertook in order to achieve the award have continued because they were part of the sustainable structure we developed, […]
26 Jun – Climate Change Lobby of Parliament
By Madeline Woods On 26 June individuals and groups from all over the country met in London to lobby parliament about Climate Change and future climate action. This included a number of people from the Leeds Diocese, gathering to meet their MPs. When asked why they had chosen to attend, a variety of reasons were […]
09 Jun – Live Simply at St Joseph’s Primary School in Wetherby
Last month we featured a brief update about St Joseph’s Primary School in Wetherby gaining the Live Simply Award from CAFOD. Below is a more detailed story from the Head Teacher, Louise Milivojevic. Not only is St Joseph’s the first school in the Diocese to gain the Live Simply Award it is one of only […]
15 May – Two Live Simply Awards in 1 month
A second parish in the Diocese has obtained the CAFOD Live Simply award. On top of this one of our schools has also achieved the award. Here are the details: Our Lady of Kirkstall parish, Leeds The Leeds parish of Our Lady of Kirkstall, encompassing the church communities at St Mary’s Horsforth, Holy Name in […]
05 Dec – CAFOD @ Leeds Trinity University
Hello, I’m Madeline. I’m a recent graduate and this academic year I am on CAFOD’s Step into the Gap programme. The majority of this leadership programme, run by CAFOD, is based at a placement in the UK. For me, this is Leeds Trinity University. I first heard about the programme from my mother, who is […]
10 May – Share the Journey
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 […]
19 Apr – CAFOD’s work in El Salvador & Nicaragua
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 […]
The UK – A Leader In Development Aid?
During 2009-10 I was a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) volunteer in Sri Lanka, working with a small NGO (the Business for Peace Alliance – or BPA for short). It is a network organisation of regional Chambers of Commerce. The civil war there had recently reached its bloody climax and the island was now ‘at peace’. […]
24 Apr 17 – ‘Vivir bien’ – working with communities to shape development in Bolivia
This article is by Nikki Evans, CAFOD’s Programme Officer for Bolivia. As she lives in Yorkshire she is regularly to be seen around the Leeds CAFOD Volunteer Centre. This article serves as an introduction to the lecture she will be giving at Leeds Trinity University on 4th May – see the end of the article […]
17 APR 17 -New CAFOD Volunteer Campaigns Coordinator
This is Patrick Taulo Chabviaka. He is the new volunteer Campaigns Coordinator in the Leeds Diocese CAFOD Volunteer Centre. Patrick says about himself: “I come from Malawi which is a land locked tiny country on the South eastern part of Africa. Inspired by my modest upbringing and experience of being born in one of the […]