p18-26_covers 07/05/2020 15:34 Page 19
profile Last year when I started as Cafod’s new Director, I could never have imagined that in less than twelve months, a global Coronavirus pandemic would be unleashed on the world. We’ve had to change the way we work at Cafod: from remote home working to engaging with our amazing supporters online and ensuring our programme teams around the world have the resources they need to respond to COVID-19 in vulnerable communities. We now face a global crisis and while nobody knows where it will leave us in a year’s time. One thing is for sure: we will all be changed, but Cafod’s vision and purpose remains. Spending more time at home than most of us are used to, has led many, including myself, to embrace this pause and enter a period of reflection. The first time I worked for Cafod, I was in my early twenties, I’d just left a job at Justice and Peace in Liverpool, and I was excited to start my journey working on international development projects. Exactly three decades on, I’ve returned to Cafod and in my first year, I’ve seen that Cafod’s sense of vision, mission and purpose has never been stronger. We’ve launched ‘Our Common Home’, a blueprint for our future. Inspired by Pope Francis’s call for an ecological conversion, we are working to create a stronger, more integrated approach to our work, people, communities and the environment. A few months into my role at Cafod, I travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo. There, I met women who were survivors of violence and abuse – their determination, in the face of their traumatic experiences, an ongoing conflict, and the Ebola epidemic – was humbling. They were focussed on rebuilding their lives determined to succeed at being independent. The women were part of a programme run by Centre Olame where they learnt skills that they could turn into businesses. Among these were soap making: a skill and a product that will be vital in fighting the spread of COVID-19. Growing up in Crosby, Liverpool, I’ve been acutely aware of how we, as Liverpudlians, have always been able to show generosity and compassion towards others, often when we are
Christine Allen Coronavirus is changing the way we work but our commitments to the most vulnerable remain steadfast by Christine Allen, Director of Cafod dealing with our own hardships. That solidarity, being able to walk with our sisters and brothers in need, is at the heart of putting our faith into action. The Catholic community across Liverpool and the rest of England and Wales is the backbone of Cafod. The parishes, schools, and individuals trust us, our church agencies and local experts to reach families most in need with the emergency aid, training and resources they need to flourish. This commitment has transformed lives. To see this interconnectedness and understand how connected we are not only as people but in the issues we face, is absolutely essential and critical in driving Cafod’s work overseas and in our faith communities across England and Wales. In the past few weeks, we’ve already seen the significant impact that the Coronavirus is having not only here in the UK but in vulnerable communities in the developing world. We know that this situation is becoming an unprecedented crisis which we, our church agencies, and local experts, are already responding to. Our common humanity calls on us to act and respond to the needs of people in
the best way can. Cafod sits on the mighty shoulders of the National Board of Catholic Women and four feisty women; Elspeth Orchard, Jackie Stuyt-Simpson, Evelyn White and Nora Warrington, who showed excellence in their commitment to bring about change through innovation, creating Family Fast Days to save the lives of malnourished babies on the Caribbean island of Dominica. As the first female Director I am acutely conscious of the debt we owe to these women. It inspires us to keep fighting to create a fairer and kinder world that puts the ‘God-given right’ of dignity at the centre of all that we do. I see it daily in the women in communities across the world who are making such a difference. Of course I also see that energy here at home with the Catholic community across England and Wales. They are the lynchpin that enables us to continue innovative programme work, to reach the most vulnerable and marginalised people in some of the world’s poorer nations. I am constantly humbled by how Cafod is such an expression of the love, solidarity and desire for justice that is what it means to be a Catholic.
Catholic Pictorial
19
