Caritas India and Misereor in Germany had set its priorities for the joint Lenten Campaign for next year. Both the organization has been working for the upliftment of poor, marginalized and disadvantaged section of the society.

Every year through Lenten campaign both the organisations raise the attention of people towards the burning issues to support the underprivileged. Misereor believes that poverty and environmental destruction can neither be treated in isolation, nor can they be over come from the perspective of the one country or continent alone.

The joint campaign aspires for a just and more sustainable world with a fundamental socio-economic structural shift and a thorough review of the associated models of a good life and the common good.

Next year’s campaign will be designed focusing on the Encyclical of Pope Francis ‘Laudato Si’ to strengthen our trust in the power of human interaction and to involve the whole human family in seeking sustainable and integral development in our ‘common home’.

In this regard, five-member team of Misereor visited Caritas India in Maharashtra to capture the stories of change from the Jeevan PLE programme. The team visited Beed district of Aurangabad diocese to witness the change and collect information to design materials of the campaign.

Ms. Anja Hammers, Ms. Marijam Gunter, Ms. Karina Kirch, Mr. Florian Kopp, and Mr. Frederic Spohr from Misereor visited few villages and interacted with the community to understand their issues and their solutions.

The team visited Baranpur village to see the community empowerment and action to solve the issue of water in their village. Mr. Balasahe, the village sarpanch explain the whole process of community participation, reflection, decision making and implementation to address the issue of water crisis in their village.

The community had constructed water conservation structures to arrest the rain water to recharge the ground level which can be used for the village. The community leveraged its own resources and collectively worked together and constructed 35 water conservation structures in the village. Now, the rain water does not go out from the sloppy terrain of the village but stays in the village. These trenches had stored 25 lakh liters of water which is used by the community for agriculture and household needs.

“Water is no more an issue and it helped in providing livelihood to the people, stopped 100% migration, increased education for children. Now villagers are happy as they don’t have to walk for kilometers to fetch water which is now available in their village itself” shared Balasahe with the team.

Misereor team took interviews with different sections of the community to reestablish the facts from the community itself. They asked children, women, married couples and elders about this transformation and gathered their insights.

Team also visited Antharwanpimpri and Umri villages to witness the sustainable Agriculture Practices in terms of organic farming and community collective actions to avail their due entitlements from Government Schemes.

Misereor team expressed deep appreciation to the Caritas India team for their relentless efforts working in such far flung villages and bringing tremendous change. The team gathered all the information, facts and photographs needed to prepare materials for the Lenten Campaign.