“Clean up your computer campaign” is the project launched by CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, for Christmas this year. CAFOD has in fact discovered that British families will spend this year approximately one and a half billion pounds, over two billion euros, on personal computers between Christmas and the New Year. But most of these computers are actually produced in Mexico, in Thailand and in China by exploited and underpaid workers. For this reason the charity has invited the English to ask in the shops where they purchase them whether the companies that produce them respect the standards of the International Labour Organization, without the exploitation of the under-age, discrimination or forced labour. In this regard CAFOD advises potential purchasers to be “gentle but firm” with shopkeepers and distribute flyers with the advice to follow for buying Christmas presents in a just and fair way. The “Christingle service” was celebrated throughout England on Sunday 19 December. This is a very ancient celebration that can be traced back to the Moravian Church. The tradition makes use of a ‘sign’ made of an orange, which symbolises the world, with a candle stuck in its centre, to represent God, light of the world, and four twigs strung with dried fruit, nuts or jellied sweets of different colours, to represent the fruits of the earth, and a red ribbon tied round its circumference to symbolise the blood of Jesus shed for our salvation. Each parish pledges, at Christmas, to celebrate this tradition for British children. This usually takes place on the Sunday before Christmas.
