CARITAS India Launches Pope4Planet Campaign

The social wing of the Catholic Church in India, Caritas India launched a four-year campaign in an effort to support Pope Francis' mission to care for the planet earth while welcoming the Papal Encyclical on  on June 19, 2015 in New Delhi.

New Delhi: The social wing of the Catholic Church in India, Caritas India, launched Friday a four-year campaign in an effort to support Pope Francis' mission to care for the planet earth while welcoming the Papal Encyclical in New Delhi.

In association with a Delhi based NGO partner- Chetanalaya and with the support from 200+ partners from across India, the organization plans to build a chain of human network in support of the campaign 'Pope4Planet'.

Working in the field of environment since 1970, Chetanalaya is the social wing of the Archdiocese of Delhi. It has various policy reformations at state level and livelihood programs at the grass root level.

In the coming months, Caritas network in India will join hands with many other organizations to amplify the concerns and possibilities mentioned in the Pope's letter.

Encyclical is addressing a universal agenda on Environment Justice. The campaign would be open to all people irrespective of any religion. Pope4Planet campaign will embark and promote a go green campaign by targeting to plant at least a million trees in a span of 4-5 years.

In the run up to Caritas General Assembly in 2019, the campaign will act on the theme 'One human family, caring for creation'. It will lay major focus on afforestation activities to sustain the below 2 degree Celsius temperature of our planet as proposed by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen.

Additionally, a research is being initiated to validate the impact of the organization's sustainable agricultural practices (SAP) program across India encompassing 43,000 small farmers. The findings of the study may be submitted at COP 21 in December 2015.