Your generous gifts have been passed to the Apostleship of the Sea (AoS) members for distribution.

AoS is a frontline service for the care of seafarers visiting British shores. They provide practical and pastoral care to all seafarers. Port chaplains and volunteer ship visitors welcome seafarers, offer welfare services and advice, practical help, care and friendship, according to our guiding principles of Mission, Solidarity, Welfare and Hospitality. Apostleship of the Sea in the UK is part of an international network known to the maritime world as Stella Maris.

Find out more about their work at  apostleshipofthesea.org.uk

They raised a wonderful £37 for the appeal.

They say “thank you” to everyone who bought the cakes and helped in any way. Well done!

In August there were severe monsoons in Bangladesh resulting in very damaging floods after two weeks of continuous heavy rain.   Fortunately training received from ‘Caritas Bangladesh’ enabled people in Kainmari to protect their livelihood from the worst damage, such as by building mud embankments round shrimp farms, but even so a great deal of damage was caused by overflowing ponds and the entry of contaminated water, killing off prawns, lobsters and carp.

The floods have now receded, and people are picking up the pieces, while ‘Caritas Bangladesh’ are responding in nearby areas even worse hit, providing food and other basic necessities.

If you wish to send a message to the people in Kainmari we have been supporting, like Pobitra, Sabita, Bijoli and Profulla, please do so via the Parish Office and these will then be forwarded by e-mail to ‘Caritas Bangladesh’.

These deprived children may live in appalling conditions, in wooden shacks or even sewers. The lucky ones may live in primitive refugee camps under plastic sheeting. Give a shoebox this Christmas to show that them that someone cares.

A gift-filled box can be rewarding to make but for the child who receives it, it is like a miracle. Each child will only ever receive one of our boxes – this may be the only present they have ever received or will ever receive.

On Saturday 10^th & Sunday 11^th of September (or the following two weekends)

1. Take an empty shoebox from the church porch
2. Fill the box with simple gifts for a poor child in Montenegro, Tanzania or Romania. In the box you will find a leaflet giving suggestions for suitable  items . Patterns for teddy bears and hats are in a folder in the porch.. These hats are needed in Africa too, as temperatures in the foothills plummet at night.
3. Wrap the box according to the instructions on the leaflet and return it to the welcomers at the beginning of Saturday evening and Sunday masses by Sunday 16 October. Do not leave your shoeboxes at any other masses.

You can help us by

1. taping a £1 coin to the outside of the box to help cover transport costs.
2. putting an elastic band around the box or tie  a shoelace etc around to keep box together (do not use sticky tape).
3. making up a box for a boy – they tend to be overlooked!
4. keeping to the above deadlines as late boxes may not reach their destinations in time
5. putting a plastic cup in your box – the organisers tell us that most children do not have one

If you cannot fill a shoebox please consider taking a “Sponsor a Shoebox” envelope from church porch and making a donation. Details are inside each envelope.

Looking for ideas to fill your shoebox? Why not make an easy teddy or hand puppet. Download the instructions here.

The money will go to help local people like Pobitra.

When he’s not working on his shrimp farm, he’s serving drinks to locals at his tea shop, or tending his vegetable garden. But his shrimp farm and crops were badly damaged by Cyclone Aila in 2009. He lives in a small house belonging to his sister, with his wife, Mollika.

“Cyclone Aila was more destructive than Cyclone Sidr in some ways. Sea water came right up to our house. My shrimp farm was damaged and our crops too.

“I got training from Caritas Bangladesh in how to grow vegetables in soil affected by sea water. I learned how to preserve seeds, how to make a raised bed so the crops are less affected by salt and how to help the vegetables thrive organically.

“If there’s enough rain and no cyclones I’m hoping our vegetable garden will recover and we can grow as many vegetables as we did before the cyclone.

“I believe there’s opportunity here if you go out and look for it. A few years ago I only had my tea shop. I worked early in the morning and in the evening – but I didn’t have anything else to do for the whole day. Now I have lots of ways of earning money.”

UPDATE Pobitra and his wife Mollika have had a baby boy! The baby, who was born at home on 1^st May, is the couple’s first child, after five years of marriage. A thrilled Pobitra describes him as “a gift from God”. Both mother and baby are happy and in good health.

On behalf of all the troops in Afganistan, may I thank you for your kindness to us in sending the parcels of books and sweets. It was very kind of you to consider everyone from the British forces serving abroad.

The response of the people in Britain has been overwhelming and every main Camp and the small Outposts all around Helmand province in Afghanistan now have large supplies of books for the troops to read. Could I ask you to thank everyone who donated in any way.

We have now finished the Book and Sweet Appeal (such was the overwhelming response). Could I ask you in thanking your donors, to also ask them to stop sending any parcels as the mail system is easily clogged. Instead, British charities like “Support our Soldiers” are always keen to accept items for the troops. Could I request you also pass on this message of thanks and that the Appeal is closed to anyone you know who has sent packages to us.

Many sincere thanks indeed for your kindness.

Rev Peter Scott
HMS Seahawk
Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm

Here are photographs of the newly-opened classroom block in Orapwoyo Primary School. The children in the photograph look rather old to be at primary school.   This is because their lives were disrupted as refugees, fleeing from the ‘Lord’s Resistance Army’, and they are only now able to catch up.

It has been possible to enrol an extra 211 pupils this year thanks to the extra classroom space, and students will now be able, after years of chaos, to sit their Uganda Primary Leaving Examination, to the marked benefit of their future lives.

The ongoing CAFOD programme is to help people prepare better for future natural disasters, given the frequency of cyclones and floods. This is a situation which climate change might make worse, even to the extent that 15% of the country might eventually be under water.

Local people are therefore being encouraged to find alternative ways of earning a living, including short term. These include people like Sabita, a smallholder, and Profulla, who runs the small grocery shop, who appear on our display board in the church north aisle.

One problem is that there was much less rain in the last monsoon season, so there is a higher salt content in the soil and crops will not grow well; duck-rearing is being encouraged as an alternative. The all-important shrimp farming is also affected, and villagers who struggle to get by have less income to spend and so the grocery suffers and needs re-stocking with different items.

Countless simple, humble yet vital projects in this community are being got off the ground with funds such as those provided by yourselves.

Large collecting box in the church porch (Gift Aid envelopes also available, alongside).

650 children had a truly happy Christmas after receiving one of your shoeboxes, stuffed with presents and treats.

What do you know about Bangladesh? You will probably know that thousands of Bengalis now live in the UK and have made a huge contribution to our economy. And that Bangladeshi curry has become one of the UK’s favourite foods!

But did you know that the Sundarbans in southern Bangladesh, which is home to the endangered Royal Bengali Tiger, is the largest single block of mangrove forest in the world? Or that the country is home to 160 million people, which means it has a larger population than Russia, despite being 120 times smaller?

Pobitra

Pobitra is a man of unrivalled energy. When he’s not working on his shrimp farm, he’s serving drinks to locals at his tea shop, or tending his vegetable garden. But his shrimp farm and crops were badly damaged by Cyclone Aila in 2009. He lives in a small house belonging to his sister, with his wife, Mollika.

“Cyclone Aila was more destructive than Cyclone Sidr in some ways. Sea water came right up to our house. My shrimp farm was damaged and our crops too. I got training from Caritas Bangladesh in how to grow vegetables in soil affected by sea water. I learned how to preserve seeds, how to make a raised bed so the crops are less affected by salt and how to help the vegetables thrive organically. If there’s enough rain and no cyclones I’m hoping our vegetable garden will recover and we can grow as many vegetables as we did before the cyclone.

“I believe there’s opportunity here if you go out and look for it. A few years ago I only had my tea shop. I worked early in the morning and in the evening – but I didn’t have anything else to do for the whole day. Now I have lots of ways of earning money.”

Sabitha

Sabita was at home with her husband and son, Pardha, when Cyclone Sidr hit Kainmari in 2007. She and her family fled to safety, but their house was completely destroyed. Now the president of the women’s group and a key member of the disaster committee, Sabita helps other people in the community prepare for disasters.

“When Cyclone Sidr hit, I knew what to do because I’d had training from Caritas Bangladesh. I collected our identity documents, put them in a polythene bag and buried them in the ground so they would be safe. I saw a tree falling down and God held me back. Then I saw my husband and son following me. We had rainwater and mud all over us. The next morning we returned to our house and it was completely washed away.

“I have no alternative but to live here and cope with tidal surges, cyclones and floods. This is my family house, I cannot leave. So we are trying to adapt. In the disaster committee we have three flags for different levels of cyclone. Caritas Bangladesh gave us the flags, along with a radio and a megaphone.

“We can’t stop natural disasters, but we can try and minimise the damage. My priority is for my son to finish university so he can get a good job.”

Profulla

Profulla’s grocery shop is at the centre of village life in Kainmari. Selling everything from sacks of duck feed, to packets of biscuits and fresh vegetables the business is thriving. But when his shop was destroyed in Cyclone Sidr in 2007, Profulla was left with nothing. Starting again from scratch, Profulla built back his shop brick by brick. He now lives in a room at the back of the shop with his wife and daughter.

“I have never experienced anything like the Cyclone Sidr. It was very cloudy and the speed of the wind was increasing. Then it started to rain, and it got heavier and heavier. Everybody closed up their stalls, and made their way to the cyclone shelter. The next morning, I came back and there were trees lying all over the road. I used an axe to get through, and saw that my house and shop were completely destroyed. It was a terrible situation. You can’t understand. It was our home and everything had gone.”

Tapati

One of six children, Tapati left school at 10 and got married when she was 14 years old. Now she lives happily with her husband, but is quietly determined that her daughter, Tunpa, will become a nurse. To realise her dream for her daughter, and to earn extra income, Tapati has started her own duck farm, with support from Caritas Bangladesh.

“With Caritas’s help I bought 25 ducks and took part in training where I learned how to look after them. The ducks aren’t producing eggs yet, because they’re too young. But in a few months I will be making money by selling the eggs. My daughter, Tunpa, helps me look after the ducks. She wants to be a nurse, but I’m worried that I won’t be able to afford the college fees.

“Our family was big – so my parents couldn’t afford to educate all of us. If they’d had more money I could have finished school and I wouldn’t have had to get married so young.

“I have seen so many changes in this area since I was a girl. When I got married women rarely left the house. But now I’m a member of a women’s group. We talk about how to plan to our families and why it can be beneficial to have fewer children. If people have fewer children, they have more money so girls don’t have to get married when they’re under age. I hope that if I can earn some extra money, Tunpa can fulfil her dream.”