100,000 roses will be sold at a price of 5 euros each throughout Switzerland next Saturday, 25 March, to support human rights. On the occasion of the annual ecumenical campaign “Bread for our neighbour” and “Action for Lent”, several hundred groups and parishes throughout the country will testify their solidarity to those who must struggle to gain respect of their own rights which, explain the promoters of the event, “do not fall from heaven”. The proceeds will be devolved, among others, to Codimuj, a women’s association in Chiapas, one of the poorest regions in Mexico, which is campaigning for the emancipation and improvement of the living conditions of indigenous women, and to Preda, another women’s organization, this time in the Philippines, which is also campaigning against the violence and abuse of which women are often the victims, in particular against prostitution and the sexual exploitation of young children and for children’s rights. Caritas Jerusalem and Caritas Switzerland (the two organizations are twinned) meanwhile have launched a new development project in the town of Beit Sahour, in the district of Bethlehem East, in partnership with the local municipality. The aim of the project is to construct a water and sewage network linked up with the main network to solve the problems linked to water shortage in the southern area of the territory of Beit Sahour and foster its further development, after the confiscation of a large part of the territory situated to the north due to the Jewish colonists’ settlement of Har Homa. Apart from its participation in this project, Caritas Switzerland has also been an active partner of Caritas Jerusalem in development projects at Aboud and Budrus, in the western district of Ramallah.
