Millennium Development Goals in Your Lenten Calendar

February 4th, 2008

Lent is nearly upon us. Once again, the Lenten season encourages us to use our creativity to reconnect to local faith communities and be in solidarity with the global church. Lent offers us the opportunity to show solidarity with the suffering of the poor.

During this time for personal and community reflection, we invite you to use the resources below and commit yourself to knowing more fully the Millennium Development Goals.

The MDGs correspond to issues that you, as religious leaders and faith communities, have been actively supporting for decades. They speak to the central concern of all faith traditions: the dignity of every human being.

The MDGs are eight goals for world development, adopted by the UN in 2000 in a drive to “cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015″.

The Millennium Development Goals are:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Create a global partnership for development with targets for aid, trade and debt relief

Call to Action:

• What can one person do to achieve them?
• What can we do together?
• What do we ask of our elected governments who have committed to working to achieve the MDGs?

Resource for Lent & the MDGs:

Catholic Agency for Overseas Development
Making a real difference to the world’s poorest people.

Tracking the Millennium Development Goals
Learn, Track & Support

Faith in Action: Working Toward the Millennium Development Goals
“An Action Toolkit for Religious Leaders and Communities” (Download PDF)

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