Transforming Lives For Over 50 Years

CAFOD Lent Fast Day, Friday 26th February 2010

Over the last 50 years, your support has helped to transform the lives of millions of people. Thank you for your generosity. Help us make 2010 a special year. We’re asking you to give something up for Lent and donate the money to CAFOD. By doing so, you can create some amazing changes for people who live in the developing world.

£50 buys a bicycle for a volunteer carer!

For example, the money saved by giving up your favourite biscuits for Lent could go towards buying a bicycle for a volunteer in Rwanda so they can visit children who have lost their parents to AIDS or genocide. David Kanyamanza, who is 74, uses a bicycle provided by CAFOD to take food, clothes and simple medical care to children struggling to cope in Kigali. David listens to the children, gives advice, helps them sort out problems, and shows them that they matter to someone. There are so many children who need a ‘David’. Can you help provide a bicycle this Lent?

£4 can provide clean drinking water for a family!

Or, why not try turning wine into water. Give up your wine for Lent and help provide a water pump for a rural community: Elisias Myambo’s village, Kalisowe, in Zambia is a testament to how a simple water pump can transform village life; ‘Before the pump, we travelled four hours each day to get water. Now we have more time and enough water, planted kitchen gardens and cleared fields for farming. I am growing cabbage, tomatoes, rapeseed and onions – and I’m growing cotton too’. Water pumps are desperately needed across the developing world. Could you help buy a water pump this Lent?

£40 will provide help for a family hit by disaster!

When cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh, flooding and destroying the homes of many poor people, Umila Basar told us about the difference a robust house makes. CAFOD helped her family to build such a house after their reed house was badly damaged. ‘Before, I spent all my income on rebuilding my house after we were hit by one cyclone after another. It was a big burden for me. Now we feel safer.’

Cyclones and flooding are on the increase in Bangladesh, due to our changing climate. Stronger homes are desperately needed. Will you help to provide safe shelter for a family this Lent?

Lent is a time when many of us choose to give something up as a reflection of our faith. This year, why not change whatever you’re giving up into lasting change for a child, family or whole community?

£10 will provide a vegetable garden

Helping a poor family in Bolivia grow nutritious vegetables. Having struggled for years to grow food in poor soil, Victoria Pascual can vouch for the difference it made when CAFOD provided her and her husband with materials to build a greenhouse: ‘I used to spend the little money we had on buying vegetables. Now I can grow them for my family. I can sell anything we don’t eat to buy other things we need’. Best of all, Victoria and her husband no longer live in fear of being unable to feed their children. With your help, another family could say the same!

Look out this Lent for our ‘Give it up’ envelopes and our new collection boxes in your parishes and why not do something to involve people in your parish like:

• Lenten Hunger Lunches in people’s homes, in your parish hall or school
• Organise a quiz or race night
• Host a parish fun day
• Have a sponsored walk
• Involve the young members of your parish – challenge them to come up with some exciting ideas to raise funds for CAFOD this Lent
• Have a raffle, book sale or ceilidh

The possibilities are endless. Your prayerful support is always needed. Please ask people to say the CAFOD Lent 2010 prayer throughout Lent?

God of light and life,
we have a vision of a shining world,
of lives transformed and people inspired
as the shackles of poverty are shattered,
and your people set free.

We have a hope of enough for everyone,
of a world where your gifts are fairly shared
and your creation flourishes
as the barriers of injustice are broken down.

Spirit of God, transform us
so that we can transform the lives of others.
Work through us so our vision becomes reality.

Convert our hope to truth,
so that all humanity may flourish
and all on earth cry out with joy.
Amen
(Catherine Gorman/CAFOD)

For further information about Lent 2010, please visit www.cafod.org.uk or contact David or Carol Cross on (01904) 671767 or e-mail middlesbrough@cafod.org.uk