Family Fast day, now known as Lent Fast Day has been a phenomenal success. From the first collection in 1960 which raised £6,673.9s.7d (the organisers had hoped they might raise £500) to the present, Family Fast Day has raised over £65million for a multiplicity of development projects in over seventy countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and, in past years, in Eastern Europe.
Since Family Fast Day is the lynch pin of CAFOD’s activities in the Catholic community, it is natural that people should think it was started by CAFOD. In fact, it was started by two Catholic womens’ organisations - the Catholic Womens’ League (CWL) and the Union of Catholic Mothers (UCM) - under the auspices of the National Board of Catholic Women (NBCW). And even then, it was really just a handful of women who actually organised it and got it going: Jacqueline Stuyt-Simpson, Elspeth Orchard, Evelyn White and Nora Warrington. There were certainly others, but these were the key people. Jacquie was the NBCW’s representative on the World Union of Catholic Womens’ Organisations and it was through these contacts that she heard of the very successful Family Fast Day which had been organised by a Catholic womens’ group in Austria. She persuaded the National Board that they could do the same in England and Wales.
Many people had known hardship and poverty in their lives and had an instinctive sympathy for the poor and those who were struggling to survive
In those first years, the work of organising Family Fast Day was done from peoples’ homes and, of course, on a voluntary basis. Elspeth Orchard was Treasurer of the Board, and she and her daughter acknowledged each donation individually; the 600,000 copies of the leaflets, for every parish in the country, were printed at cost price by Frank Mildner’s firm in Herbal Hill. Fast Day poster ads appeared in the Catholic national press, the Catholic Herald running one of the first ones, sandwiched between headlines on Cuba and whether married women should go back into teaching.
Another event that caught the headlines at the time was Cardinal Griffin, the then Archbishop of Westminster, who caused a public furore in Lent 1961 by suggesting, not only that Catholic families should observe Ember Friday in Lent by fasting and donating the money saved to the relief of the ‘hungry and starving’, but that domestic pets should be fed less expensive foods. ‘A plump and pampered poodle might run all the more gaily after a reduced diet, simpler fare, and perhaps after having been denied a visit to the hair stylist,’ wrote the Cardinal. ‘Pampered Poodles’ became something of a slogan.
In the second year, the Grail house in Sloane Street was used as the base for packing parcels, which were then carried by hand or on the bus to the nearest post office. But by year three, in 1962, Family Fast Day was proving so successful that the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales set up a national Catholic fund - CAFOD - to develop and extend the work which had been started by the Catholic womens’ groups and put it on a more professional footing.
When the Fast Day first took place, the obligation of Friday abstinence for Catholics had only recently been removed and many families saw this as an opportunity to continue the practice of giving up something - voluntarily - and for the sake of others. In the early 1960s, the Catholic community was much less affluent than it is today and still relatively poorer than the rest of the community. Many people had known hardship and poverty in their lives and had an instinctive sympathy for the poor and those who were struggling to survive. Frequently those opening the envelopes from Fast Day appeals were deeply humbled by the letters which accompanied donations. ‘Please accept this small offering from myself and the children - the eldest girl, 5 years, entered into the spirit of fasting with zest, no big dinner, no sweets’; £5 from a pensioner (at that time the weekly pension for an elderly person) saying their need was greater than hers. Another person wrote, ‘It’s not convenient for us to cut down on our food on the Fast Day as most of us have our dinners out, but we went without luxuries this weekend, i.e. cream, sweets, tinned fruit, ham, which we usually have, and saved the enclosed.’ I can remember one couple who had saved up to buy a new carpet for their living room, but when they were made aware of peoples’ needs in other countries they decided to forego the carpet and give what they had saved to Family Fast Day.
It is this recognition that we are somehow all in it together, that we are all one family, that is so humbling. And in those early days the message was quite clear: ‘Millions of people in the world are hungry and they are hungry largely because the good fruits of the earth are enjoyed by too few - and WE are among the few…..There is enough food for all - if only it could be fairly shared.’ (Quote from the 1961 Lent Fast Day leaflet)
Frequently those opening the envelopes from Fast Day appeals were deeply humbled by the letters which accompanied donations
The idea that God made the world for all, and that the fruits of the earth are to be enjoyed by all, is absolutely fundamental to our Christian faith. St. Ambrose of Milan, writing in the fourth century said, ‘What pleasure can come to you from squandering nature’s wealth? The world was created for all people in general, yet a handful of the rich endeavour to make it their own preserve.’ St. Augustine in the same century was preaching, ‘The superfluities of the rich are the necessities of the poor. When you possess superfluity, you possess what belongs to others.’ The Second Vatican Council reminded us of the saying of the Fathers of the Church: ‘Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him you have killed him.’ Such teaching may come as a bit of a shock to our affluent society. Yet, at the same time, it can be a huge relief to recognise that we can often manage perfectly well with what we already have; and doing without can make us feel better in ourselves, more in control of our lives, freer, healthier, less dependent on possessions of any kind.
It is this spirit which is still at the heart of CAFOD’s work. Indeed, one might say, it is CAFOD‘s heart: a genuine solidarity with those less fortunate than ourselves; compassion towards those in need; gratitude for the gifts God has given us; a sense of relief that we can do something to help those who, on a one to one basis, we would never be able to reach. It is obvious (not least, from the massive response which CAFOD has had to its Haiti Appeal) that the Catholic community is genuinely grateful for the gift of giving which CAFOD offers us!
So in this 50th Anniversary year, it seems right that CAFOD has decided to return to the simple, basic message of ‘going without so that others may have’ and is asking us, quite simply to give up something throughout Lent and give what we save to CAFOD. It’s as simple as that give it up!
To find out more about CAFOD’S Lent Fast Day, ‘give it up’ you can go on line:
www.cafod.org.uk/giveitup or you can get in touch with your local parish contact.
Haiti: Petionville Golf Club Camp
by Mike Noyes, CAFOD’s Humanitarian Head of Funding and Compliance
Petionville Golf Club Camp is on the hillside overlooking the centre of Port au Prince, it is perhaps the biggest camp in town, home to as many as 50,000 people.
CAFOD Partner Catholic Relief Service are providing food for distribution, working in close collaboration with Caritas Haiti, who are providing many of the staff and volunteers for the organisation of the aid. They are getting significant logistics support here from the US marines, from the 73 Airborne Division, who have also set up base here at the golf club. The US army are at the top of the hill with the camp on the side and the top.
Driving up the hill, we went through what was once one of the better off parts of town but where many houses have collapsed or become uninhabitable. People have stretched sheeting between the walls of the houses and are living in the streets. This earthquake affected the well to do as well as the poor. Sometimes in the camps you see a smart new car parked next to a shelter made of sticks and curtains.
We parked at the top of the hill, where the club house is. The usual 4x4s you might see in a golf club car park have been replaced by US army Humvees. The CAFOD Humanitarian team are hugely experienced in these kinds of emergencies and have sent highly-experienced and professional humanitarian aid workers to work alongside experienced Caritas and local partners. Their coordination has played a crucial role in the delivery of aid, food, water, and shelter to hundreds of thousands of people, families like Carmen’s. I met Carmen Charles age 36 years, married with two girls, Marielle, 6 years and Corielle, 8 years. When asked her age, she was quite proud to add, that most people are surprised to learn she is 36, as they say she looks much younger.
Dressed in a bright green top with an olive green headband, she is living in a makeshift tent with her family and two other families in a space about 3 metres by 6 metres. There are 14 in all in the space, the two other families are neighbours from their home in Cite Frederic, where they were living before the quake. She works for a telecommunications company.
Their shelter is made up of bedsheets strung along wooden poles with a bright blue plastic tarpaulin for the roof. The floor is also no more than bedsheets. There are about twelve double bed sized sheets in all, mostly checkered patterns, but some are flowery. A yellow cross done with a marker pen on the side of the shelter indicated that she is part of the group that got food for fifteen days yesterday. Her family had been in the camp for just over a week. The inside of the tent is bare apart from a few cooking pots and plates. Outside was a small pile of firewood, two plastic chairs and a plastic bucket being used as a dustbin.
She spoke with Corielle her eldest daughter standing with her arms wrapped round her mother’s waist, while the younger daughter played on the ground behind her. They have a cousin staying with them, Odile, who lives in another part of town. Her home was also destroyed. She is a college student but there are no classes now, she helps keep an eye on the two little girls while Carmen goes out to get food and other supplies for them.
They had received food supplies from the CRS distributions the previous day, wheat, oil and beans.
Haiti: Carmen's Story
‘I was at home when the earthquake came. My children had just come back from school, and I was getting them changed and washed. I felt something very violent, a shaking. I grabbed the children, the house was falling and starting to lean. I cried out to God, and ran from the house. A woman who was with us was thrown to the ground.
I can’t tell you what I felt, I can’t find the words, shock no, fear no, I was struggling to understand what was happening..
I ran outside with the children. All around there was crying. There were people injured. There were people dead. I saw things I don’t want to talk about. My cousin was killed.
It is something I don’t think I will ever forget.
My husband was at work when the earthquake came. He’s a manager at a business in town called GMC. His office collapsed but he managed to escape. I did not know what happened to him. I was worried, very worried, anything could have happened but I had hope. He came home at 9:00 (five hours after the quake).
Our house is in ruins. It is leaning, one wall has collapsed. It is the wall of the girls bedroom. The rest is cracked and very dangerous.
We can go in to get things, but it is not safe.
As long as you are alive, you always have hope. I still have my children, that is a blessing for me. Haiti will live again,
that is my hope
Washing ourselves! Now, you’re talking. We have to go back home to wash and use the toilets. There are no facilities here. The girls are scared to do this.
The children are coughing and they now have diarrhoea.
My husband has gone out today to get money from the banks, I have not been able to, the queues are very long. If you have money there is food to buy in some places. But we need the supplies we are given here, it is not much for fifteen days, but it is so important. We were happy to get it.
It will be boring to eat the same thing for fifteen days, especially for the children. They really need milk.’ She became very animated when she spoke of the future, using her arms to express herself better.
‘As long as you are alive, you always have hope. I still have my children, that is a blessing for me. Haiti will live again, that is my hope.’
