{"id":11719,"date":"2025-02-06T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T09:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leedsjp.org.uk\/?p=11719"},"modified":"2026-10-06T09:47:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T08:47:05","slug":"6-feb-cafod-family-fast-day-14th-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/2025\/02\/06\/6-feb-cafod-family-fast-day-14th-march\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Feb – CAFOD Family Fast Day 14th March"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\nDuring Lent, CAFOD is inviting you to join Lokho on her journey of survival \u2013 of finding hope through devasting drought.\u00a0<\/i><\/b>\u00a0

\u201cOne day, two of them died,\u201d Lokho tells us of her goats. \u201cA day after that, another. A week later, another three. Now I have zero livestock.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

At just 28-years-old, Lokho is a survivor of a devastating drought. There was no grass for her goats to eat, just miles of dry, cracked earth. The goats collapsed and died from dehydration.\u00a0

With her animals gone, Lokho was left with no way to support her young family. She had no safety net to fall back on.\u00a0\u00a0

\n\"Lokho\n40 MONTHS WITHOUT RAIN\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0

In northern Kenya, the dry seasons are increasingly extreme. Lokho\u2019s community survived 40 months without rain \u2013 40 months of scorching sun.\u00a0\u00a0

Her neighbours shared all they had. Lokho tells us: \u201cMy good neighbours have the habit, the tendency, of helping one another \u2013 and that is how they can survive.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

Finally, thankfully, the rains came. But Lokho\u2019s community had already lost almost everything. They needed a new way to get food. They needed a plan so that when the next drought hit, they would not be left with nothing.\u00a0

\n\"Young\nSIMPLE IMPACTFUL SOLUTIONS\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0

Lokho chats as she pushes a wheelbarrow full of water tubs. Her baby sleeps peacefully on her back. She strides toward the community vegetable farm, surrounded by her neighbours. Here, working side by side with local experts, they\u2019ve begun to sow the seeds of their future.\u00a0\u00a0

\u201cThey entirely depended on livestock for life,\u201d explains Wakera, who works with Lokho\u2019s community. \u201cNow we have introduced poultry and kitchen gardening.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

Local experts like Wakera are teaching Lokho and her neighbours techniques for growing vegetables in the arid climate. Crucially, together, they\u2019ve built innovative shade nets which protect young plants from the sun.\u00a0\u00a0

\u201cThey provided us with that green net there,\u201d says Lokho, pointing to a large net that covers her whole vegetable patch. \u201cThe sunlight still gets to the plant, but it\u2019s not as destructive as before.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

These nets act as an \u2018anti-greenhouse\u2019 \u2013 they keep the burning sun off the plants whilst still allowing every drop of precious rain through.\u00a0\u00a0

\n\"CAFOD\nBUILDING A BETTER WORLD FOR ALL\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0

Arms full of vegetables, Lokho walks back to her home. Later, she will sell the produce in her small shop and split the money between her neighbours.\u00a0\u00a0

\u201cThese savings will help us when we go through a time of emergency,\u201d says Lokho, \u201cAt a time when there\u2019s a food crisis, we can purchase food to save people. I feel like I\u2019m now safe and secure.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

Lokho\u2019s eyes turn to her children playing in the yard.\u00a0\u00a0

\u201cThe littlest one was born towards the end of the long drought,\u201d she says. \u201cIt makes me smile now to see her walking about. I feel great pride.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

Lokho has hope for her family\u2019s future. She tells us: \u201cI turn to God through prayer. I pray for a better life in which to raise my children.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u00a0

\nA BETTER WORLD NEEDS ALL OF US. A BETTER WORLD NEEDS YOU.<\/b>\u00a0

Help families around the world survive emergency conditions and build a better future.\u00a0\u00a0

\nPlease donate this Lent\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0

<\/i><\/b>Give online at cafod.org.uk<\/b><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0

or call 0303 303 3030<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0

or send a cheque to: Freepost CAFOD<\/b> (no address or stamp needed)\u00a0\u00a0

\n5 ways your parish can get involved this Lent

1.\u00a0<\/b>Hold a Fast Day collection<\/b><\/u> – Hand out CAFOD’s green Fast Day envelopes as people come into church and share CAFOD’s Family Fast Day with your parish by putting up CAFOD’s\u00a0Lent poster<\/a> and reading their short talk<\/a>\u00a0at Mass. You’ll be amazed by the difference your parish can make!

2.\u00a0<\/b>Big Lent Walk<\/b><\/a>\u00a0– As a parish or school, on your own or with friends,\u00a0sign up to take part in the Big Lent Walk<\/a>\u00a0and walk 200km in 40 days to help fight global poverty.

3.\u00a0<\/b>Simple parish lunch<\/b><\/a>\u00a0– Come together as a parish community to share a simple lunch and raise vital funds for communities living in poverty around the world.\u00a0Find recipes for simple soups, stews and curries for your parish lunch<\/a>.

4.\u00a0<\/b>Make a Jubilee pledge<\/b><\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0Share CAFOD’s newsletter announcement<\/a>\u00a0and invite parishioners to make a monthly donation to share hope with communities around the world in the Year of Jubilee.

5.\u00a0<\/b>Pray with us<\/b><\/a> – sign up to receive CAFOD’s weekly Gospel reflections<\/a>\u00a0for ways to give, act and pray with us this Lent.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[104,11],"tags":[20,391,351,392],"class_list":["post-11719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-development","category-social-action","tag-cafod","tag-findinghope","tag-jubilee","tag-lent"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11719"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19863,"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11719\/revisions\/19863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c4652100.myzen.co.uk\/jp2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}