Caritas Ambassadors
The Caritas will meet every other week on a Tuesday lunchtime at 12-1.
Year 5- Riley, Mistura, Valentina, Shannara
Year 6- Kelsey, Ivy, Farzana
Assistants- Gideon, Charlotte, Rachel, Mistura, Preya.
What does Caritas stand for?
Caritas may refer to: The Latin term for charity, one of the three theological virtues. Inspired by Catholic faith, Caritas is the helping hand of the Church – reaching out to the poor, vulnerable and excluded, regardless of race or religion, to build a world based on justice and fraternal love.
Caritas shares the mission of the Church. It's an ordered service to the community. Inspired by Gospel values and the Catholic Social Teaching, Caritas responds to disasters, promotes integral human development and advocates on the causes of poverty and conflict.
Caritas is committed to solidarity among all peoples, but particularly with poor people, seeing the world through their eyes, and recognising the interdependence of the human family. Solidarity includes the persevering determination to work for the common good.
What are the 3 aspects of Catholic social teaching?
The principles of Catholic Social Teaching:
Human Dignity
Solidarity
Subsidiarity
Our Caritas Ambassadors lead part of Mass at St Paul’s this morning. They also introduced themselves to the parish and explained their role as Caritas Ambassadors. The Caritas Ambassadors are a selection of students who are witnesses to God’s faith by putting prayers into action and supporting those who are less fortunate than themselves. We then opened up school to invite parishioners over for tea/coffee and snacks. We had lots of visitors, including Fr Barry and Deacon Peter. Well done to our pupils today - you were fantastic!! Thank you to the families and staff who came to support today.
The children met with Miss Concannon. The children wrote the bidding prayers and explanation of what they have been doing during the last year and their plans for next year.
The children met for the first time as a new group. The children discussed families and communities their next focus and family Masses at the weekend. We also discussed ideas with grandparents and the Christmas Bazaar that we are planning for next half term.
We thank Sam, Tyler, Anna and Rebecca for their hard work as they leave St Pauls. They were involved in the interview selection and interviews to see who our new Ambassadors would be. They are Shannara, Mistora, Valentina and Riley.
Caritas Ambassadors event.
As a group we went to St John Fisher's parish center. We took pictures of things that we have achieved over the year to share with the other schools. The children were confident to speak to other children and staff. They spoke to Bishop David about their year and then we had a celebration of Thanksgiving together.
The Caritas Ambassadors set up their book and uniform swap for the parents.
Our first meeting after the Easter holiday.
We called for our assistants to help us.
Group 1:
Focused on the local environment. They emailed two local groups and discussed litter picks around the school and local area.
Group 2:
Focused on an Earth day that they are planning for at the end of June.
Group 3:
Focused on the Parish links and thought of some ideas.
We met for our working lunch. We discussed all that we have achieved this term and created a mind map.
1pm- We presented our mindmap of ideas to the other caritas ambassadors in the MAC schools.
We met for our working lunch. We discussed helping our local environment. We looked into groups in the local area who look after our parks and the canal.
We met for our working lunch. We discussed more ideas for our next aspect families and communities.
We met for our working lunch.
Mrs Pugh wrote an email for us to the staff asking for books for our book swap. We also looked ahead to the Catholic social teaching aspect for Spring 2. It is families and communities so we decided to come up with ideas to focus on.
8th November 2022
We met for our working lunch.
Book swap- We split into two groups. One group focused on organising the adult book swap and the other group focused on the child book swap.
While Anna and Kelsey researched how much a water butt and compost bin are.
Mrs Damms and Mrs Pugh took part in a teams meeting with other Principals and leads to discuss Caritas Ambassadors and how its going. Other teachers were impressed with our ideas and we took some ideas from other schools too. We have arranged a meeting for the children to attend and also a get together in July.
11th October 2022
We had our second meeting of the year with the Caritas Ambassadors.
We had a think about out Earth day and decided that the day should be in the spring. We considered some ideas for the day. We will raise money for a compost bin and a water butt.
We decided that we are going to introduce a book swap in school for both staff/parents and children.
We had our first meeting of the year. We decided on doing an Earth day where we look at the environment for the day.
We are one of the first schools in Birmingham to have Caritas Ambassadors. Mrs Damms and Miss Foster went on a training day to learn all about it with Sister Judith Rossi.
Mrs Damms presented a presentation to year 4 and 5. They were told all about it and asked if they would like to be involved.
The children completed an application form and handed it in. Then they also presented their presentation to Miss Foster, Mrs Williams and Ms Manning.
8 children were then chosen to be the Charitas Ambassadors. The other children will be their assistants.
On the 28th April 2022 Mrs Damms, Miss Foster and the Ambassadors went to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Rednal. They had a day of training and then were commissioned by Bishop David.
