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17 – 24 June 2018

Global Week of Action

Show your support for migrants and share their journey through a
global series of shared meals and community activities. Get involved today!

Get Involved

Host or join a shared meal

Sharing a meal is much more than just spending some time with other people to eat together. Food is one of the fundamental basic human needs and is of critical importance to all of us. It’s also a powerful vehicle to bring people together in a moment of joy, relax and of true communion.

Bring your community together with migrants and refugees for a meal and share your stories about your lives, your hopes and your dreams. Find out that despite our differences, we are here on this earth as one human family.

DOWNLOAD GUIDE
Share a Meal Form

Other ways to get involved

Our global week of action provides the springboard to deeper relationships as a
community and with migrants and refugees.

  • How to get started

    Recognise the migrants in your community. Some may have been there for years and run businesses, be parents at your school, and others may have just arrived.

  • Practical tips:

    Your community spaces and church buildings should be welcoming, with clear signs, preferably in migrants’ languages. Provide as much welcoming encouragement as possible by inviting migrants and members of minority ethnic groups to attend special services. Think about if you could host a drop-in centre or toddler group.

  • Benefits:

    If your community has no group working with newcomers, this could be a very successful action for you. Offering adult literacy, language sessions, or teaching computer skills will demonstrate your welcome.

A GUIDE TO TAKING ACTION
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Toolkit

Assets to help you put on and promote your event.

Posters

Use these posters to spread the word about the Global Week of Action.

Graphics

Logos and graphics to help with your event.

Social Media Pack

All the assets you’ll need to post content about the Global Week of Action on social media.

Info pack

Additional information and literature about the Global Week of Action.

Show your support by sharing a meal with a migrant during our Global Week of Action

Migrants and refugees may have gone through periods of hunger and difficulty or they may have faced solitude and rejection rather than welcome. Through your Caritas organisation you can either attend a meal or identify new and long-standing migrants in your community whom you can invite to a meal you organise.

Be Inspired

Be inspired to get involved

Communities around the world have been bursting with ideas of how to Share the Journey with migrants and refugees. Here are just some of the ways that communities are inspiring us to sit up, listen and take up the journey with our brothers and sisters on the move.

Inspire Me

FAQs

What is the Share the Journey campaign trying to achieve?

Our awareness campaign is a chance to strengthen the bonds of our global human family. We want to create more spaces and opportunities for migrants and communities to come together. By doing this, and promoting the “culture of encounter” so often talked about by Pope Francis, we aim to combat prejudice and build more inclusive societies. Pope Francis supports the campaign and he launched on 27th September 2017.

What is the Share the Journey Global Week of Action?

The Global Week of Action is one of the high points of our two-year Share the Journey campaign. Caritas organisations and local communities will promote a variety of activities to encourage learning and action around the migration experience and to understand how we are all part of each other’s journey. Read our action guide.

When is it?

The action week runs from 17th to 24th June. It’s the week around World Refugee Day which is on 20th June.

Where does it take place?

Caritas organisations across the world will be promoting action that week. Our organisations work in communities in over 160 countries.

Who can take part?

Migrants and refugees will be at the heart of our week of action. We invite communities that they leave, where they pass through and where they go to make new lives to organise a shared meal or undertake an activity together.

How can I participate?

Contact your diocesan or national Caritas for more information. Here are lists of national Caritas organisations in Middle East and North Africa, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Oceania, North America and Europe.

Where do I get resources to help me promote the global week of action?

You can download our action guide here. More resources will be available on this page soon.

What if I can’t manage to organise a meal with migrants and refugees?

There are lots of other activities you can do together such as organising a prayer service or, quite simply, by learning more about why people migrate and about the myths surrounding migration. Even if there is not migration in your area, you can learn more and participate online through our website and through the #sharejourney hashtag.

A message of hope

“We at Caritas would like to invite you to join us on a journey of faith, hope and love with migrants.

Hope is the force that drives the hearts of those who depart… and it is also the impulse in the heart of those who welcome: the desire to encounter, to get to know each other, to dialogue…. Hope is the force that drives us “to share the journey.”

– Pope Francis

The Pope

Not long after his death, Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were full of fear following Jesus’s death. They didn’t recognise Jesus until they sat down for a meal together and he broke bread.

How many times in a day do we not recognise Jesus in the people who cross our paths? We may be busy or distracted, or we may be closed in the tomb of our own fears and misconceptions.

Share the Journey is an invitation to roll away the stones that are blocking our hearts and imagination and to share the journey with each other – in particular with the most vulnerable people, such as migrants.

– Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Caritas president, invites you to Share the Journey

Join the conversation during
the Global Week of Action

#sharejourney

17 – 24 June

Global Week of Action

Get involved now

Learn more

Myths about Migration

Useful

Download Campaign Assets
FAQs

Contact

apicella@caritas.va
+39 066 987 9718

Media contact

Michelle Hough, hough@caritas.va, 0039 334 234 4136

© Caritas Internationalis 2018
Photos by Philip Laubner, Amy Rebecca Marisco, Isabel Corthier, Alexandra Way
Text: Jane Standley
Translation: Clotilde Not, Mariangeles Carvajal
Communication Coordination: Michelle Hough
Toolkit design: Chris Stone
Website by Lionhouse and Myra Soetandyo