The Caritas confederation has lost a long-serving colleague, Mark Snyder, who was country representative in Sudan for Catholic Relief Services (a North American member of the Caritas network). He died on 29th July after being diagnosed with malaria. Lesley-Anne Knight, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis, said, “I am really saddened by the news which has been [...]
Entries from July 2009
July 29, 2009
Rural poor’s resilience after decade of devastating decline
David Snyder in Zimbabwe – Day 3 Read this entry in French My last night in Zimbabwe, after a few days now with Caritas staff visiting Caritas beneficiaries in southern Zimbabwe. There is a lot to say about Zimbabwe today. After many years now of decline – the collapse, really, of both the economy and the health [...]
July 29, 2009
Mothers abandon children in economic crisis
David Snyder in Zimbabwe - Day 2 Français, Español If you want to understand the scale of the economic crisis gripping Zimbabwe, travel to the village of Mandabe. While evidence of the hardships facing the people of Zimbabwe is not hard to find across much of the country, the face of crisis is not what [...]
July 29, 2009
Zimbabwe – food still scarce in poor families
David Snyder in Zimbabwe – Day 1 Français , Español After a drive down from Harare yesterday, we headed out this morning for the village of Lupaka. We spent the day there visiting first the Lupaka Primary School then the Lupaka Clinic, which sit side-by-side and both of which Caritas Internationalis is supporting with food as [...]
July 16, 2009
Caritas Internationalis 2008 Annual Report
By Patrick Nicholson, Head of Communications, Caritas Internationalis The English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once said “the great instrument of moral good is the imagination”. We took our theme of this year’s annual report to be using our imagination to believe not in a first world, or a third world, but one world where [...]
July 9, 2009
G8 and climate change
By Pascale Palmer, guest blogger from Caritas England and Wales (CAFOD) I stood 30 feet from President Barack Obama yesterday. It’s the first time in my life that when someone (I didn’t know personally) entered the room, I felt the right thing to do was stand up and cheer. Luckily CAFOD’s head of policy stopped [...]
July 9, 2009
India after Aila: Standing By The People
As darkness descended over the Choto Sehera village on that fateful day of 25 May 2009, Kalikinkar Das had an unique experience that he would treasure as long he lives. People came to him in numbers, handed over their life’s savings in a packet or wrapped in cloth with their respective names tagged on it, [...]
July 9, 2009
India after Aila:Where Living is a Burden
Asura Bibi, entered silently and went and stood beside the table of Kalikinkar Das. She had two papers in her hand. She passed one to Kalikinkar, mumbled something and stood there motionless. There was a sudden silence in the office room of Kalikinkar, the Deputy Chief of Sehera Radhanagar Panchayat. He was immersed instantly in [...]
July 9, 2009
G8: La bella Italia
The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the premier of a gob-smackingly beautiful country. In fact it is well beyond beautiful in parts – it is that awe-inspiring notion of the sublime where man is swallowed up by the immensity of mountain and alluvial plain, and senses his smallness, the presence of God, his place [...]
July 9, 2009
G8: Trials and tribulations
It is actually a two-hour coach ride between our accommodation and the G8 summit. From the half-built Mediterranean Village in Chieti, which is gearing up for the Mediterranean Games, it is a slow 100km to L’Aquila. Yesterday we had Carabinieri and police escorts all the way and I think the route may have had restricted [...]
