THE young boy pictured in a barren dusty landscape on this year's Trocaire Lenten box is just one of many watching the weather with a deepening sense of despair. Nangiro Amodoi (12), whose family is struggling to make a living in northwest Kenya, was chosen by Trocaire to highlight the devastating effects of climate change in the agency's 2008 Lenten campaign.
Launching the annual fundraising drive yesterday, Bishop John Kirby warned it was time the rich countries took responsibility for the effects of the changing climate.
With aims to raise over €14m in this year's campaign, Trocaire said it was working to ensure communities adapted to climate changes with water- storage and irrigation projects.
Nangiro is shown striding among the barren land in Turkana in Kenya. Like his father and grandfather before him, he has become a goat herder. However, due to climate change his family's way of life has been threatened.
The land is now dusty, barren, and in recent years droughts have been increasing in volume and intensity.
Just a year ago, Nangiro's mother died giving birth. His family say life has been getting harder due to the drought but they don't want to leave her resting place.
In Kenya, Trocaire is working to provide agricultural supports and education, soil and water conservation projects to reduce the vulnerability of communities to climate change.
Back in 2004, Josienne, then 12, featured in the campaign marking 10 years since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Massacre
Just two years old when the massacre took place, she had lost her father, sister and two older brothers.
The trauma had taken a major toll on Josienne and her two brothers' school work but, with Trocaire's support, they had received counselling.
She has received financial and social support from Trocaire to help her remain in school. In 2006, Jaime Antonio Ruiz Zamora, then nine, featured in the Lenten campaign on child labour.
He was working on a coffee plantation approximately 200km from Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua.
Many thousands of child workers are employed in the industry, working long hours every day in difficult and dangerous conditions for little pay.
During harvest, Jaime was working from 6am until 1pm, earning the equivalent of 45c per basket filled.
At the time of the campaign, Jaime spoke of his dreams of one day becoming a teacher and going to secondary school.
Now 12 years old, he is in third grade on the school on the coffee plantation. He is training to become a social community educator to share his knowledge with other children from the plantation.
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