Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
22 December 2021
Post No. 227
The Week’s Festive Contents
• Thanking 2021 Poverty Reduction Producers and Enablers
• Festive Season’s Arrangements
• Season’s Relief Triple Action Givings: Peace, Hope and Difference
… And much more!
Key Festive Messages
• Thanking 2021 Poverty Reduction Producers and Enablers
As 2021 comes to an end, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who produced poverty reduction with us and those who made poverty reduction possible for those in need and for us. Amongst them are those who supported our work on poverty relief and sustainable development during this ending post-pandemic year.
For more information about this first key message, please read under the Main Development section of this post.
• Festive Season’s Arrangements: from 23 December 2021 to 5 January 2022
The following are the arrangements we have made for the above stated period.
• • Queries and enquiries
During the festive holidays and the restrictions to slow down the spread of COVID-19 variants (Delta and Omicron), we will only handle online queries and enquiries until the 5th of January 2022. However, our All-in-Development Winter e-discussion on Volunteering for Climate Neutrality and Poverty Reduction is still on until the 5th of January 2022 as planned.
• • Opening hours and days: 24/7
We are open online 24 hours and 7 days of week.
• • Visits
You can only visit us online.
• • Festive donations
Our festive campaigns highlight not only the projects and activities that are related to CENFACS’ demand, but also and mostly to the needs of those living in poverty around this time of the year and of the continuing coronavirus disruption.
Those who want to donate to our fundraising campaigns and projects (such as Gifts of Peace and End-of-Year 2021 Support); they are welcome to do so.
Their festive support or donations will help bring a Blaze of Hope and Peace to those in need, particularly at this turbulent time of the new coronavirus pandemic variants.
As well as donating, there are other ways one can support. These other ways range from spreading the message about CENFACS’ work and campaigns to visiting our online store for shopping.
All the above initiatives can create magical reliefs during this Festive Season and disturbing moment of restrictions relating to new COVID-19 variants.
• • Season of Light
Although our Season of Light has just kicked off, some of our services and activities (such as advocacy, in-person fundraising events, etc.) as well as development campaigns are scaled down until the 5th of January 2022. Also, they are even more reduced than the previous festive periods and years because of the coronavirus pandemic and the latest new COVID-19 variant (i.e. Omicron).
• • What’s on from 23 December 2021 to 5 January 2022!
We are breaking for the festive holidays while following the new COVID-19 restrictions. However, there are projects that are essential in exceptional times like of the coronavirus pandemic and of the festive break. One of them is advice-giving one which will still be run online.
This is because evidence shows that in any difficult moments of human history or crisis, the poorest always suffer. They do not have festive celebration as such, just as they could be the ones bearing the most negative socio-economic effects of the post-coronavirus pandemic and the return of COVID-19 restrictions. Many of them need support which includes advice at any time.
The above figure shows what is on between 23/12/2021 and 05/01/2022. For those who want to get a further picture about what will be happening within CENFACS during the remaining days of December 2021, we recommend them to read our three last posts on the Blog page of this site.
• • Delays regarding call and e-mail responses
People should expect delay from us in responding to their calls and e-mails. We heavily rely on volunteers for most of our services, who are sharing the Winter e-discussion with us during this Festive Time. Some of them are already on holiday. Also, the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions relating to the new COVID-19 variants (i.e. Delta and Omicron) do not make things easier.
• • Emergency and exceptions
In case of emergency or exceptional circumstances, please do not hesitate to text, phone, e-mail and complete the contact form on CENFACS’ website. We will respond to your message as soon as we can.
We apologize for any inconvenience or upset this may cause.
We thank you all for your invaluable and sustained support during 2021 and look forward to your continued and further support in the New Year.
We wish you a Very Healthy, Safe and Peaceful Festive Season!
• Season’s Relief Triple Action Givings: Peace, Hope and Difference
• • What is the Season’s Relief Triple Action Giving?
It is about fighting poverty and hardships in a number of fronts over the Festive Season, particularly by helping…
(a) to bring peace,
(b) to create hope
(c) and to make a difference.
Let us briefly explain each of the three givings (that is, peace, hope and difference).
• • • Peace via the Gifts of Peace
Our celebratory theme for the Season’s Reliefs is Peace and continues to be alive to the end of this season. The Gifts of Peace, which are one of CENFACS‘ festive favourites, are the set piece of the Season’s Reliefs that provides the absence of conflicts within ourselves as well as between us and others.
In terms of projects and programmes in Africa, the Gifts of Peace try to support poor people and communities so that they can navigate their ways towards freedoms from wars, armed conflicts, coronavirus disturbance and disorder from natural events.
For those who are looking for fundraising appeals or projects to fund as festive gifts over this festive time, Gifts of Peace as an appeal is a valuable proposal they could consider.
To enquiry about and or fund the Gifts of Peace, please contact CENFACS and go to Support Causes at http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/
• • • Hope through the Gift of Light
Our theme for the Season of Light is Hope and is still featuring what we have planned to achieve over this season. The Gift of Light helps to bring hope to those who are in the darkness and need some lights to see life through other ways.
Regarding the projects and programmes in our sphere of operation in Africa, through the Gift of Light we try to work with hopeless, desperate and destitute people and communities so that they can rebuild confidence and faith in themselves and continue to believe that they can find light and move away from darkness in the future.
• • • Difference by means of Charity e-Store
Shopping and donating goods at our Charity e-Store is the third giving. Following the new COVID-19 variant and the current restrictions, CENFACS’ Charity e-Store is opened for goods donations.
We are asking goods donors and buyers to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT THIS SEASON by using these following options:
∝ Safe collection of goods for recycling: We can arrange for goods to be safely collected at an agreed location, day and time under our Recycle and Give policy
∝ Goods buyers can Click and Collect.
Every time you shop at CENFACS’ Charity e-Store, you make a helpful difference to people in need over this festive time. Amongst these people are those who are trying to fight the coronavirus-induced poverty.
The above are the Season’s Relief Triple Action Givings. Each of these action givings will help to reduce poverty over the festive period and beyond.
We can only help reduce and possibly end multi-dimensional poverty as well as coronavirus-induced poverty if you help us to do so. And this time of the year is a unique opportunity for you once a year to change lives through your invaluable action giving, however small it may be.
Please, don’t miss this marvellous opportunity of the post-pandemic year and the end of the year. There is a high demand for poverty reduction.
To donate goods and/or shop, please go to: http://cenfacs.org.uk/shop/
Extra Festive Messages
• Campaign for Resilience against the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19 Campaign) during the Festive Season
How to Integrate the New COVID Variant (Omicron variant) in the Shadowing Model of Fight against COVID-19
Our COVID-19 Campaign is also active and trending during the festive period and the new restrictions relating to the COVID-19 variants (i.e. Delta and Omicron) since the coronavirus has kept its sinusoidal shape as we thought it at the beginning of Autumn 2020. The campaign is still in its Phase 3 of Post-COVID-19 Rehabilitation Strategies for our work in the UK and in Africa.
This phase or stage includes the following sub-stages: recovery, repair, strengthened restoration and functional capacity. We are dealing with the four sub-phases (i.e. recovery, repair, strengthened restoration and functional capacity) at the same time since these sub-phases are interlinked. This concerns our actions relating to the two operations (in the UK and in Africa).
• • What is the COVID-19 Campaign by CENFACS during the festive season?
The COVID-19 Campaign by CENFACS during the festive period is about finding ways of integrating the new COVID variant or mutation in our shadowing model of fighting against the coronavirus pandemic.
• • Keeping the momentum in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic
To keep and win the battle against the coronavirus, it is advisable to maintain a healthy relationship between hands, faces and space as we have been told by the health authorities and experts on COVID-19 matter. It is better not to give up the basic healthcare principles and any life-saving advice during the festive season, even if one is double vaccinated against the coronavirus.
During this Festive Time, we are continuing to advocate for the community to stay resilient and vigilant against the coronavirus pandemic if one wants to win the fight against this deadly COVID-19 pandemic. In this respect, it is in the best interest of everybody to act in a way that does not increase the health and economic threats and risks of the coronavirus pandemic and its variants on their and other people’s lives.
For further details about the COVID-19 Campaign during the festive season, please check with CENFACS’ COVID-19 Hub for Poverty Reduction.
• • Breaking out the vicious circle of the new economic inactivity
As many members of our community are living in the areas of COVID-19 restrictions, there could a need for some of them to find way to break out the vicious circle of the new socio-economic inactivity. The exercises we have provided so far in relation to the COVID-19 lockdowns are still relevant and can be applied to manage the renewed socio-economic inactivity.
For those who are looking for new types of activities including tips and hints, they can still let us know so that we can together e-work to come out with some new proposals to manage this challenging situation of COVID-19 changing faces and spikes which continue to occur during the Festive Season.
Additionally, there are a lot of resources both print and online that can be used and accessed to deal with the renewed socio-economic effects of COVID-19 restrictions.
Need support to break out the vicious circle of the current socio-economic inactivity, please e-contact CENFACS.
• Festive Income Boost, All year-round Projects and the CENFACS Community
• • Festive Income Boost
For children, young people and families in need on whose behalf we relentlessly advocate; we can expect that they have managed to generate some little extra incomes they need to cover the extra expenses of the Season’s financial pressure.
More importantly than anything else, they will manage to stay healthy and safe while exercising their basic human right to some forms of festive celebrations despite the coronavirus restrictions.
Equally important, everybody in the community is doing what they can to better manage their spending limit and not to carry forward income deficit into 2022.
• • All Year-round Projects (Triple Value Initiatives)
Our All Year-round Projects or Triple Value Initiatives (i.e. Play, Run and Vote for poverty relief and development) will close on 23 December 2021 as planned. One can hope that participants have been able to select their African Country or Game Runner or Development Manager of the Post-pandemic Year. Those who have not done it, they have still 24 hours to do.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank those who responded to our call for Action-Results 2021.
• • The CENFACS Community
We would like as well to express our gratitude to those who replied to the Community Value Chains, the CENFACS Community, by adding their talents and skills to our register.
• Natural and Climate Balances in Festive Celebrations (or Net Zero Festive Celebrations)
It is possible to offset one’s carbon foot print and to have a positive effect on the nature and climate by the way one will celebrate their Festive Season. It is possible to have a net zero CO2 emissions festive celebration; that is a festive celebration that does not add extra emissions to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Already, COVID-19 lockdowns had beneficial effects on nature and climate to a certain extent in Summer 2019. However, none needs everlasting lockdowns for these effects to happen. This benefice can be increased in the way one may want to pass their Festive Season.
In this respect, our nature and climate campaigns continue as we are carrying on advocating about the maintenance of healthy balance between festive celebration and nature, between the season’s festivities and climate. In other words, it is possible to have a festive celebration that is net zero CO2 emissions and climate-friendly while preserving the wealth and health of the nature.
Briefly, this extra festive message, which reinforces our commitment to the development of sustainable initiatives, can be translated into action at individual level. The message is indeed about natural and climate balances by the way of approaching and celebrating the special days of the Festive Season (e.g. Christmas and the New Year’s Eve).
For more details and support about natural and climate balances in one’s festive celebrations, please do not hesitate to contact CENFACS.
Remerciements et Voeux Festifs 2021
A tous ceux et toutes celles qui ont permis au CENFACS de réaliser le travail de réduction de la pauvreté et du développement durable au cours de l’année 2021, le CENFACS vous dit…
infiniment.
Le CENFACS vous souhaite une saison des fêtes saine, sécuritaire et paisible.
Main Festive Development
• Thanking 2021 Poverty Reduction Producers and Enablers
The work and produce of CENFACS are collective endeavour. The end of the year gives us an opportunity of the many to thank all those who directly and indirectly contributed to the year 2021, either as poverty relief producer or maker or even enabler.
Perhaps, the best way of thanking could be to do it individually by naming every contributor. There could be a risk of forgetting some audiences and supporters. To avoid this risk, we are thanking them collectively although we may mention here and there some names.
Year 2021 has continued the thread of 2020 in terms of historical challenge for CENFACS and many people/organisations in the world as the world is still battling against the coronavirus pandemic. The toughening of restrictions in many places to slow down the spread of COVID-19 and its Omicron variant, the mandatory re-wearing of face masks and home working/studying as part of COVID-19 rules are all the indications of the challenge of the year including at this festive time.
Despite this unparalleled challenge of the post-pandemic year, the commitment of various individuals and organisations to what we are trying to achieve has been indisputable and will be unforgettable.
In particular, we would like to mention the following contributors: users, volunteers, web readers and commentators, web reviewers, local people and families, Africa-based Sister Organisations, charitable organisations, non-governmental organisations, community groups, third sector organisations, recycling organisations, individuals, etc.
Year 2021 has been dedicated as a “Leafy” Year, a Year of Leaves of Poverty Reduction within CENFACS. During this year, we have tried as much as we can to reach out to those in need of relief from poverty and hardships through our Twelve Leaves of Poverty Reduction. As it has been as well as a continuing pandemic year, we have deployed our efforts and resources to help and work with the community and our Africa-based Sister Organisations to protect themselves and others from the continuing life-threatening and –destroying impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
We would like to thank all those who have helped and worked with us in our COVID-19 Campaign to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and its destructive health and economic effects including the consequences of lockdowns.
Without undermining the other valuable and traditional sources of support we normally receive, we would like to thank, particularly but not exclusively, WordPress.com, Easily.uk and Twitter.com. We thank them for providing us again with the opportunity to bring our ideas and work of poverty reduction to life to not only our audience but to a global audience as well.
WordPress.com, Easily.uk and Twitter.com with their platforms have continued to give us as a charity a tremendous opportunity and learning experience to engage the public and other supporters as well as to enable us to re-communicate our anti-poverty messages and undertake our work on sustainable development. They helped us to create happy memories for our project users while enabling their wishes and dreams come true.
Small charitable organisations do not always have the financial means to put their messages across, to connect supporters with their causes. Having the possibility of using free or sometimes affordable means of communications can enormously impact the work of these charities. Free or cheap is not always poor quality or option, just as heavily paid option is not always the best one. All depends on what you get and what it achieves.
2021 will be remembered by many including CENFACS as a post-pandemic year. It is also a year of economic slowdown as many of the economic effects of the coronavirus disaster and shock have been accumulated this year. The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent effects have forced us to shield ourselves as well as to remotely or distance work in order to achieve our mission and aims. This has meant we had to go out our normal way and means to reinvent ourselves in order to deliver the same and new services in exceptional circumstances.
Thanks to the support we have received from some of you, we have been still able to manage the bumps along the poverty reduction road. We could punch above our weight in delivering poverty reduction outcomes and products for those in extreme and urgent need. In this respect, CENFACS is thankful for all of you who gave so that together we have been able to produce poverty reduction.
This year, we would like to extend our gratitude to other living things. To advocate for the peaceful relationship with the nature, the preservation of the biodiversity, the net zero CO2 emissions, the reduction of adverse impacts of climate change, the protection of endangered species of the fauna and flora and so on; we had to use images and pictures from the flora and fauna. We would like to say thank you to those beautiful and scarce creatures of the nature that helped us to put our messages across. We would like as well to express gratitude to our Africa-based Sister Organisations whose inputs have been instrumental in this advocacy.
To sum up, we are using the opportunity of the end of year to thank all those who produced poverty reduction, made and enabled the year 2021 work for CENFACS, its beneficiaries and other deserving and noble causes related to ours.
We would like to express all our feelings of thank you and best wishes of the Season’s Greetings to all our 2021 Poverty Reduction Producers, Makers and Enablers.
Help CENFACS keep the Poverty Relief work going this year.
We do our work on a very small budget and on a voluntary basis. Making a donation will show us you value our work and support CENFACS’ work, which is currently offered as a free service.
One could consider a recurring donation to CENFACS in the future.
Donate to support CENFACS!
FOR ONLY £1, YOU CAN SUPPORT CENFACS AND CENFACS’ PROJECTS, JUST GO TO :Support Causes – (cenfacs.org.uk)
Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made or make comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support throughout 2021 and beyond.
With many thanks.
