Caption Patricia and her mum Malita at their home in Malawi. Photo credit: Muiru, Mbuthia, Trócaire
As the season of Lent opened last week with Ash Wednesday, so too has Trócaire’s annual campaign to help vulnerable communities worldwide. This year, the focus is on Malita, a young girl from Malawi, and her village, which is grappling with the devastating effects of the climate crisis.
On 22 February, Salome Mumba of Trócaire’s Malawi office, is visiting Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and will present to staff from both the headquarters of the Church’s overseas development agency, and that of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, regarding the lived reality of Trócaire’s 2024 Lenten campaign.
Ms Mumba, a native of Malawi, is working with Trócaire to raise awareness about the disproportionate impact of climate change on communities in the global south. Malawi is a landlocked country in southeastern Africa home to over 21 million people, whose people are facing limited food access and struggling with critical food insecurity. The climate crisis has wreaked havoc on this region, causing destructive floods and persistent droughts that have left millions in a precarious situation.
In the world’s most deprived regions, Trócaire works in partnership with local development and humanitarian actors supporting people and communities to tackle the root causes of poverty, injustice and violence, and to support local potential to create positive and lasting change. Trócaire’s work is grounded in Catholic Social Teaching and serves people of all faiths and none, while the agency also collaborates with organisations that share its objectives.
Lent is a forty day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that began on Ash Wednesday and will end at sundown on Holy Thursday. It commemorates the forty days, recalled in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, which Jesus spent fasting in the desert before beginning His public ministry wherein He endured temptation. In Lent, through prayer, penance, acts of charity and self-denial, we are called to renew our Christian life in preparation for Easter.
For more information follow the link to the Trócaire resources site: https://www.trocaire.org/our-work/working-in-ireland/parishes/
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