Home for life
Buy this World Gift and help provide vulnerable women and children with the security of a house to live in and land to farm.
Garmeh outside her home in her Liberia.
“Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow. ”
When Garmeh’s husband died, she and her four children faced the threat of eviction and homelessness because, traditionally as a woman in Liberia, she had no legal rights to her marital home. Sadly, Garmeh’s struggle is not that unusual. She is one of many women around the world who struggle to keep their homes from being reclaimed if they are widowed.
Our local experts worked with Garmeh and proved she had a right to the property she had shared with her husband and children. The tragic death of her oldest daughter left Garmeh looking after three grandchildren as well as her own children. Things have been very difficult, but they would have been even harder without the security of her own home, as she explains:
“I want to thank God and the people of CAFOD for helping me to possess my house. As a widow I continue to face daily economic challenges since I lost my husband. Imagine if I was going to be thrown out by my late husband’s family. How would I have coped with all these challenges?”
The prophet Isaiah makes it abundantly clear that external expressions of devotion are not what our faith is about. What matters in our relationship with God is that we act with integrity and defend the rights of the vulnerable. Garmeh’s story reminds us that we can make a difference if we participate in concrete ways to share God’s justice.
May this time of Lent truly be a time when we learn to do good and search for justice.
Lent prayer
Redeeming God,
in this time of Lent
may we learn to do good.
Pour your Spirit on us,
strengthening us
to be signs of your love.
Amen.
Act
Help women to stand up for their rights and stop widows from losing their homes, with our ‘Home for Life’ World Gift.