EUROPE/SPAIN - At the Family Fair at World Meeting of Families “Aid to the Church in Need” proposes Children’s Bible and Aid Campaign for Child Soldiers in Sudan

Valencia (Agenzia Fides) - As part of initiatives for the 5th World Meeting of Families in Valencia, Spain, 1-9 July, the Catholic agency Aid to the Church in Need, through its local Spanish branch will present two stands at the Family Fair to demonstrate its work in over 140 different countries particularly to support families and protect life. The ACN stands will focus on the Children’s Bible and a campaign to rescue child soldiers in Sudan “Take the weapons from their hands!” .
The Children’s Bible, followed by the I Believe Catechism has been widely diffused. The idea of a Children’s Bible came to ACN Founder the late Fr Werenfried in 1979 proclaimed by the UN Year of the Child. The first copies were distributed in Spanish and Portuguese on the occasion of Pope John Paul II’s meeting with the Bishops of Latin America for CELAM 3 in Puebla, Mexico. Since then the Children’s Bible has been produced in 150 different languages mostly languages used by minorities in the less developed areas of the world and distributed in over 43 million copies. The most recent version is Sindi, Indio-Arian languages spoken by about 20 million people in the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajastán. Whereas the “I Believe Catechism” has been printed in 4 million copies in 20 different languages.
The “Take the weapons from their hands” campaign aims to spread awareness of the activities to rescue child soldiers undertaken by the Catholic Church in Sudan a country which experienced over 20 years of civil war . The campaign includes two projects backed by the Catholic Bishops of the dioceses of El Obeid and Rumbek with specific rehabilitation programmes for child soldiers. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 26/6/2006, righe 24, parole 337)