“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
1 Corinthians 10:13
By God’s grace, the year 2022 was a successful year full of astonishing achievements for CCSJ and our social justice efforts. From the massive growth of our outreach days, to our new forays into environmental justice – here’s all the highlights from 2022!
The Judith Jones Report and Leela Ramdeen’s plea for mercy:
“Children are a gift from the Lord. They are a reward from Him.”
May, the month of Mary, is a significant time within our faith. In a month dedicated to the Most Holy Mother, a crisis was brought to the attention of the public. Child abuse cases in children’s homes were exposed by the Judith Jones task force – heartbreaking instance of physical and sexual abuse were outlined, all flown under the radar or not taken seriously by authorities.
In an effort to raise awareness on the scourge of child abuse, former Chair of CCSJ Leela Ramdeen took a stand on the issue in a video posted on May 4th.
In this powerful video, she invokes the power of our most powerful Mother Mary as she begs for protection and justice for these suffering children.
See the full video below!
Laudato Si Week
“We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.”
– Pope Francis, Laudato si
Laudati Si was an encyclical letter written by Pope Francis, shared with the public in 2015. In it, the Pope urges us to act in the spirit of God, and fight for justice for our dying planet.
This encyclical sparked a flame that ignited across all sactions of the Catholic faith, and from it, Laudato Si Week was born – a week dedicated to education, appreciation and care for the planet that houses us.
Laudato Si begs us to recognise not only the importance of our environment, but the spirit and soul in every living creature that inhabits it. In the spirit of celebrating Mother Nature, CCSJ started our very own gardening series!
See our video with Charlene Woo Ling from the Archbiship’s House Garden as we take you through the steps of planting and growing a pineapple tree!
CCSJ joins the Save Soil Movement
“Irrespective of our nationality, race, religion, caste or gender – we all come from the same soil, and we go back to the same soil.”
– Sadghuru
This year, we jumped headfirst into environment justice by joining the Save Soil Movement! We interviewed a few local farmers and got some amazing insight on how we can improve local soil health.
Listen to the full podcast episodes here!
Refugee Days galore!
One of CCSJ’s biggest forays into community social justice saw some exponential growth this year! Initiated in 2017, the Archdiocese’s Ministry for Migrants and Refugees became a major focus for our organisation.
This outreach took the form of Refugee Days – one weekend every month would be dedicated to gathering our resources together to provide comfort, stability and community to the developing refugee population in Trinidad & Tobago. Migrants from all over the country, and of many cultrual backgrounds, attended these outreach days and received healthcare, vaccinations and other forms of support.
See some HIGHLIGHTS of our outreach efforts below!
Justice, Peace and Community Week 2022!
CCSJ’s biggest event of the year – Justice, Peace and Community Week! It is a week dedicated to promoting social justice through the Catholic lens.
Following the sacred quote from 2 Corinthians 8:9 – “For your sakes, Christ became poor” – this week was dedicated to justice for the poor!
We celebrated with intercessory prayers, asking for protection and justice for those suffering through every aspect of poverty. We paired up with CEBM to send our loving thoughts to students subsisting through poverty. We resurrected the Ask Why Series for an all new special edition, where we discussed different aspects of poverty including physical, emotional and spiritual poverty.
And to cap it all off, we ended with a brilliantly successful nature day! Volunteers from across the region came together for a beach clean up and nature walk.
See the full video here!
That’s it for us in 2022! We thank you for the support we’ve receied so far, and we hope that you continue to keep up with our activities in 2023, and consider supporting us even further!
