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Catholic Relief Services

Engagement Opportunities with Parish Youth Ministry

Engagement Opportunities with Parish Youth Ministry

CRS Education Programs & Justice Curriculum (website)

A full range of education and engagement resources are available on the CRS Education website (http://education.crs.org).

Fair Trade

The CRS Fair Trade Program unites disadvantaged people overseas and Catholics in the U.S. –in direct relationships. CRS currently promotes fair trade coffee, chocolate and handcrafts. This is an excellent way for students to be engaged in solidarity by the items they consume and buy.

Many youth groups are getting excited about Fair Trade by:

Having a "coffee house" and learning about how they can make a difference by the coffee they drink.
Fundraising with Fair Trade chocolate sales
Host a Work of Human Hands consignment sale in you parish. This features thousands of beautiful handcrafted items from dozens of countries around the world, and brings communities together in the United States in support of disadvantaged artisans overseas. When you host a consignment sale in your parish, your teens allow members of your community to buy beautiful items for their homes and to give gifts that give hope.

http://www.crsfairtrade.org

CRS Programs

Operation Rice Bowl

Your participation in Operation Rice Bowl makes a concrete difference in the lives of those living in poverty. Millions of Catholics in all 50 states reach out each Lent to assist our brothers and sisters around the world through traditional Lenten practices, by offering our prayers, by fasting, by learning, and by giving. Order the free resources in English and/or Spanish.

http://orb.crs.org

Food Fast

Food Fast is Catholic Relief Services' hunger awareness program for Catholic youth in the United States. Focusing on global poverty and justice, Food Fast provides an experience of solidarity with our brothers and sisters overseas, living our faith, and joining together in community to create lasting change in the world.

Anchored in the Catholic call to justice and solidarity, Food Fast is an educational program for youth in grades 8 to 12. Through a 24-hour hunger experience, Food Fast is designed to:

Connect young people with issues faced by their peers in the developing world through the lens of Catholic social teaching!
Challenge Catholic youth to consider how their engagement of the world, perspectives and lifestyles can make a difference.
Empower Catholic youth to take action based on the principles of solidarity and justice.

To order your free materials in English and/or Spanish call 800-222-0025 or visit our order page.

If you have questions about organizing a Food Fast or available materials email foodfast@crs.or.

Called to Witness

Called to Witness is an overseas program co-sponsored by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM). It is designed to provide a short-term, firsthand experience of the developing world for adults serving and working in Catholic youth ministry. Through Called to Witness, CRS provides youth ministry professionals with an opportunity to enhance their ministry to young people and strengthen their ability to promote global justice in the Catholic educational community.

http://education.crs.org/called-to-witness/

Capacity-Building Training Workshops

Standing As One Human Family

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) & The Center for Ministry Development (CMD)

CRS, in partnership with the CMD, offers an exciting new resource that we hope catapults the young church into a life lived standing as one human family: a peer education and leadership program on global solidarity. Standing As One Human Family has two major components. The first component is a retreat experience for youth where they are given an opportunity to not only learn what our church teaches about global solidarity, but also to be inspired and to learn how to inspire others, particularly their peers. The second component is a youth resource which is comprised of two sections. The first section contains the journal pages and handouts that are a part of the retreat program. The second section is a downloadable and easy-to-copy youth toolkit (journal and resource manual) that provides guidelines and resources for engaging their peers in social justice, global solidarity and the mission of CRS.

CRS offer a one-day (5-7 hour) training for diocesan leaders on the resource that highlights a paradigm of peer education as a vehicle for engaging youth in social justice. This resource assumes that the youth involved will have some familiarity with the principles of Catholic social teaching and doing service. Additionally, this program is not meant to replace anything you already may be doing; CRS hopes that Standing As One Human Family serves you in your efforts to further mobilize young people to live our Catholic social teachings more deeply- to get involved and do something!

Workshops at Diocesan Conferences & Professional Development Days

CRS workshops seek to highlight: issue content, catholic social teaching & scripture, skills-based training/ best practices on how to engage youth in action for justice and global solidarity and an overview of the pedagogy of transformational learning.

"Hot" issues for youth, where CRS also has expertise, are often either issue-based or region-specific, including: global hunger and food security, education, health, HIV & AIDS, fair trade, microfinance, migration/ immigration, extractives (oil, minerals, diamonds), peacebuilding, Darfur, Holy Land, Colombia, Haiti, etcetera. CRS workshops seek to answer the question: What can youth do to make a difference?

Speakers’ Tours for Parishes

CRS sponsors four national speakers tours a year on various topics. Topics of past tour included: HIV and AIDS (October); Hunger and Food Security (Lent); the Holy Land (Spring/ Summer); and Peacebuilding in Africa (October). Tours are ideal for: youth group meetings; school assemblies; high school religion classes; parish intergenerational assemblies, Theology on Tap, Colleges and Universities, Seminaries, Diocesan Conferences and gatherings, etcetera.

CRS speaker tours highlight the positive initiatives being conducted by the Church and grassroots partners to address international injustices and build peace. The tours seek to encourage US Catholics to learn more about these issues and to take action through a number of CRS U.S.-based programs and USCCB priority advocacy issues.

ADORE Ministries Concert Tour

CRS in partnership with Adore Ministries, Matt Maher of Sprit & Song, and Provident Records has joined together to offer periodic 2097 Praise & Worship Outreach Tours. Concerts are hosted by parishes, schools or universities and typically include: music, Eucharistic Adoration, teachings, interactive videos, and exhibits. This collaboration brings together national leaders in Catholic evangelization and youth and young adult ministry in an effort to witness to faith, foster a deepened experience of God through prayer and adoration, and engage Catholics in the mission and work of Catholic Relief Services. Music is the most widely accepted of all possible media through which to touch the minds and hearts of youth today.

Solidarity Will Transform the World

Solidarity Will Transform the World, by Jeffry Odell Korgen, tells the incredible story of what can happen when the resources of the Catholic Church come together with the resources—both spiritual and physical—of people living in poverty around the world. The values of solidarity and human dignity incorporated in Catholic social teaching come to life through stories of people served by Catholic Relief Services. Since this book also comes with a study guide, it is a wonderful resource for confirmation students or upperclassmen.

Exhibits at Conferences

A full range of CRS youth-engagement education and engagement resources are exhibited.

Page last modified: November 11, 2008