End Hunger Fast is a national campaign to speak out against the austerity politics of the current government that are driving millions of people into poverty in this country. As one of the richest countries in the world, the fact that anyone goes hungry is a scandal. The fact that it is millions, and the figure is growing fast, is totally unacceptable.
End Hunger Fast
Lent resource – Children and Young People
Why This Lent Resource?
These small group studies accompany the END HUNGER FAST
campaign for Lent
2014. They can intended to be used alongside the other
resources available on the website www.endhungerfast.co.uk especially the daily
Bible readings and Hunger Prayer Spaces.
What Will You Need?
You will need all the usual basic craft materials including
colouring pens, pencils, paper, card, glue, scissors, junk. You may also require seeds and compost and
for some activities access to cooking facilities would be useful but not
essential as cooking could be done off site or at home. A copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric
Carle and a children’s bible are also required.
The crafts do not use food items as this would be counter to the message
of the campaign. Please avoid using food
items such as pasta, rice in the collage activity.
The session themes are similar to those in the adult bible
study course:
1. At the foodbank
2. Food and community
3. Food and fasting and prayer
4. Food and politics
5. Heavenly food
There is enough material for five sessions but you may find
that you have lots of other ideas to extend the topic for a longer period.
Important note
Please be sensitive when discussing food poverty and hunger
with your group. These issues are often
hidden and maybe very real for children and young people in your group setting.
Session One
AT THE FOODBANK
In the last four years foodbanks have exploded all across UK
According to the Trussell Trust (www.trusselltrust.org), one
of the main resource charities for setting up foodbanks especially through
faith groups, in 2012-13 foodbanks fed 346,992 people nationwide. Of those
helped, 126,889 were children.
Others figures claim up to 500, 000 people used foodbanks in
2013 and 5,500 people were admitted to hospital for malnutrition – all this in
the 7th largest economy in the world.
Young People:
Study the shopping list of items in a foodbank parcel.
Milk (UHT
or powdered)
Sugar
(500g)
Fruit
juice (carton)
Soup
Pasta
sauces
Sponge
pudding (tinned)
Tomatoes
(tinned)
Cereals
Rice
pudding (tinned)
Tea
Bags/instant coffee
Instant
mash potato
Rice/pasta
Tinned
meat/fish
Tinned
fruit
Jam
Biscuits
or snack bar
1. Recipes
How many different meals could you
create for a family of four using these ingredients? What else might you need? Could you plan three meals a day for three
days? Would you meals change if you
could only use a kettle and not a cooker?
Try and use all the main food groups.
2. Recipe cards – design an easy to follow recipe card for one
of your meals.
3. Discuss how you would feel if you had to eat these meals and
foods instead of the ones you normally have.
4. You may be able to visit your local foodbank and help sort
food.
Children
The very hungry caterpillar needs food to become a beautiful
butterfly and very hungry children need healthy regular meals to reach their
full potential.
1. Design a poster for the foodbank asking for donations of
items from the shopping list;
2. Visit your local shop, supermarket, school or church and ask
them if they will display your poster.
3. Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar together
4. Make a junk caterpillar or a giant caterpillar for your
meeting place
Session
Two
FOOD
AND COMMUNITY
Very
few of us, here in the West at least can grow all the food we need in a year. We
all depend on others to grow food for us. The food on our plates is produced by
other human beings – it is an effort of human community.
Young
People
1. Calculate the cost of six items you eat
regularly. Could you buy these any
cheaper by shopping differently – think about supermarket own brands, local
shops, farmers markets. Could you grow
or make any of the items on your list yourself?
Would that change the cost?
2. Choose
one item to grow or make yourself to share with your friends – you can grow
many things from seed in small containers.
Could you join together and start a vegetable patch?
3. Think
about the foods you throw away each day.
How could you use these foods rather than putting them in the bin?
Research
food waste in UK – how much is thrown away each day/week/year?
Children
1. Collect
empty food tins. Before you remove the
labels make a list of where each food comes from. Clean and decorate them to use as growing
containers. Plant seeds in your tins and
see what you can grow – carrots, radishes, salad leaves, cress. When they have grown give them to someone you
know to enjoy.
2. Make
a loaf of bread together - as members of the group mix and knead the bread dough,
think and talk about these two questions: where does the bread we eat come
from? Who makes the bread and how does it get to our plates?
You
will need to wash your hands before and after this activity!
Here
is the recipe for a loaf of white bread:
500g
white bread flour
1
sachet of fast action dried yeast
1
teaspoon of salt
1
tablespoon of olive oil
280
ml of warm water
Mix
together the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Pour in the olive oil and
water and stir thoroughly. Knead vigorously for about five minutes. Cover with
a clean damp cloth, and leave to rise until the dough is doubled in size.
The
next part can be done by the leader at home: This usually takes about an hour. Knead
again, then shape it into a loaf and place in a loaf tin. Cover with the damp
cloth, and leave it to rise again until doubled in size. Bake in a fairly hot
oven (200 degrees C) for 30 minutes, or until the loaf sounds hollow when
tapped. Empty onto a wire cooling tray.
Bring
the loaf back for next week’s session.
Session
Three
FOOD
AND FASTING AND PRAYER
Through
the bible and in contemporary Christian traditions, fasting is both a spiritual
and social practice of drawing closer to God and to our neighbour. It is in
fasting that we discover the stranger in need and offer them our support. Our
Lenten fast calls us to do the same.
Fasting
is a near universal language of faith. For Jews, Muslims, Christians,
Buddhists
and many of the traditions of the Indian subcontinent fasting, of varying
degrees is practiced by each generation. In the Christian tradition it has been
most associated with two seasons: Advent and Lent.
Young
People:
1. Make the Lenten
Pretzel
The pretzel is a traditional Lenten
food, in the shape of arms folded in prayer.
Ingredients:
- 1
1/2 cups lukewarm water
- 1
tablespoon honey
- 2
¼ tsp active dry yeast
- 4
cups plain flour
- 1
tsp salt
- Coarse
salt for topping (optional)
- 1
egg, beaten
Directions:
- Add
the honey to 1 1/2 cups warm water.
- Add
the yeast and stir until dissolved.
- Add
1 tsp salt and stir until dissolved.
- Blend
in the flour using a fork. When the dough begins to pull away from the
bowl, lay it out on a hard surface and knead till smooth.
- Cut
the dough into pieces… about the size of the palm of your hand.
- Roll
each piece into “ropes” by hand, and then twist into pretzel shapes.
- Place
the pretzels on lightly greased baking sheets
- Brush
each pretzel with the beaten egg and sprinkle with salt.
- Bake
at 425 F for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.
2. Think
about these questions: What is your favourite food? What food do you think you would find it
hardest to live without? If you decided to fast and not eat those foods what
would tempt you to eat them? How would you resist? Think about Jesus time in the wilderness and
the temptations he faced. Does that
change your answers?
3. Say
the Lord’s Prayer together and reflect on the words ‘give us this day our daily
bread’. What do you think
that means? What is our daily bread?
Does
God to take care of all your needs: spiritual, nourishment, shelter, and
safety?
Children:
1. As you share and eat from
the loaf of bread that the group prepared during the last session think about
these questions:
What
is your favourite food? What food do you
think you would find it hardest to live without?
Say
the Lord’s Prayer together when you have finished eating.
2. Make a paper chain using purple paper. Write a prayer or someone to pray for on each
link of the chain. Each day tear off one
link and use the prayer on it in your own prayers.
3. Share
the story of Jesus in the wilderness.
Decorate plain stones with words from the story.
Session Four
FOOD
AND POLITICS
The
politics of food are both a global, national and local political issue. For
many years now we have known that there is enough food in the world to feed
everyone. It is often forgotten that food poverty and hunger affect young
people in the UK. Use your skills to
tell people about the issues and how they affect you or other people your age.
Young
People
1. Write
a prayer or ‘collect’ about food poverty or hunger. Collects normally have four
parts:
1.
An address that names who God is for us
2. A
description of what God does – God’s action
3. A
petition (something we ask for) related to who God is and what he does.
4.
Giving God glory or asking in God’s name.
Make
a prayer tree together to hang your prayers on.
Display it somewhere where everyone can see.
2. Design a postcard about food poverty and
hunger. Write your own message about it
and post to your local MP or to the Prime Minister.
Children
1. Draw
a picture postcard of a caterpillar and a butterfly. Write a message about food poverty or hunger
on the back and post it to your local MP or to the Prime Minister.
2. Make
a banner to show that food poverty or hunger affects children too. Think about using the story of the Very
Hungry Caterpillar as a theme for your banner.
Where could you display it? Would your school, church, supermarket or
library display it for you?
Session
Five
HEAVENLY
FOOD
Jesus
shared the Passover meal at the last supper with his friends. Here he chose the bread and the wine to
create a special meal to remember him by.
Young
People
1. Read the story of the Exodus (you could use
the Godly Play version) and then recreate the Passover meal Seder plate for
your group.
The Passover Seder Plate is
a special plate containing six symbolic foods used during the Passover Seder.
Each of the six items arranged on the plate have special significance to the
retelling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt. The seventh symbolic item used
during the meal—a stack of three matzot—is placed on its own plate on the Seder
table.
The six items on the Seder Plate are:
§ Maror and Chazeret: Two types of
bitter herbs, symbolizing the bitterness and harshness of the slavery which the
Jews endured in Ancient Egypt. For maror, many people use freshly
grated horseradish or whole horseradish root. Chazeret is
typically romaine lettuce, whose roots are bitter-tasting.
§ Charoset: A sweet, brown, pebbly paste of fruits and nuts,
representing the mortar used by the Jewish slaves to build the storehouses of
Egypt.
§ Karpas: A vegetable other than bitter herbs, usually
parsley but sometimes something such as celery or cooked potato,
which is dipped into salt water at the beginning of the Seder.
§ Beitzah:
A hard boiled egg, symbolizing the festival sacrifice that was
offered in the Temple in Jerusalem.
2. Share the story of the last supper. What would your special meal be if you were
going to have a last supper with friends?
What items would you choose and why?
Children
1. Share
the story of the last supper. Use your
imagination to make a banner of what the last supper would have been like. Use this banner in your church or meeting
place to help promote End Hunger Fast.
2. Make
a collage to show your favourite meal.
What items would you choose and why?
