CARITAS HELPING IN THE PACIFIC

This is the Caritas Kiribati Youth Group. What do you think they are doing?

Like many other Pacific peoples, the people of Kiribati are having to cope with rising sea levels.

They need to rebuild their sea walls all the time.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is supporting the Caritas Kiribati Youth Group to plant mangroves to protect their coastlines.

With funds from Caritas, the youth are travelling to different islands of Kiribati and teaching people how to plant mangroves and also about eating and growing healthy food.

She is visiting the youth and finding out about their work. Here are the youth with Julianne, the Director of Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand. She is visiting the youth and finding out about their work.

What do you think the Caritas staff are holding? Caritas is also helping out in Fiji, where people are recovering from the effects of Cyclone Winston. What do you think the Caritas staff are holding?

It is an emergency shelter kit. What are some of the items you can see? How could you use these items to build a shelter?

What items can you see here? Staff from the Fiji Commission for Justice and Development (CJD), are also putting together kitchen kits to help people who lost all their cooking equipment in the cyclone. What items can you see here?

Why do you think he came to visit this village on a horse? This CJD volunteer is distributing emergency food supplies in a remote part of Fiji. Why do you think he came to visit this village on a horse?

What do you think happened here? The people of Vanuatu also suffered from the effects of a terrible cyclone in 2015. It was called Cyclone Pam. What do you think happened here?

This man is sitting on a seat on the concrete floor of his house. What happened to the walls and the roof?

Caritas helped to repair 60 houses in one of the most badly affected parts of Vanuatu.

Caritas is also helping in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where some communities lost almost all of their crops last year because of a severe frost followed by a drought.

A devastating bush fire, caused by the drought, destroyed 25,000 cocoa trees in the Kapo area of PNG. Local people were heart-broken.

Caritas is continuing to support people in Kapo and other areas of PNG to start to grow more food. Caritas is also helping to rebuild rainwater tanks to harvest much needed water.

Caritas is also helping these children and their families to move from the Carteret Islands in PNG to Bougainville. They need to move because sea levels are rising in the Carterets and the soil is becoming too salty for growing food.

The well water is also becoming salty in parts of Tonga, because sea levels are rising. Caritas recently helped local people rebuild old rain water tanks, and also provided money for some new tanks.

What are some things that you could do during Lent to help people in the Pacific who are affected by climate change?

Climate change is a global problem with serious implications... It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Pope Francis, 2015