May Lend a Hand
Lend a Hand is the May Focus of the PWRDF Family Calendar -- you can explore this important concern with your family at any time of the year. Use your hands to celebrate how everyone --people of all ages-- can play a part in making the world a better place.
Family Activity: A Portrait of Helping Hands
1. Take a picture of the hands of everyone in the family. Think about a few different ways to take one picture with everyone's hands in it. You could pose with hands out stretched, write a message on all your fingernails, make a stack or a knot -- use your creativity and try out a few options. It will give you a few laughs and maybe even a great photo.
2. Add a title to your photo -- God has no hands but ours-- or something you choose.Put it up somewhere where it will remind you to use your hands in the service of others.
Alternative: Instead of a photograph you could do a picture with hand prints from the whole family using water-based paint, or ink. Discover how best to arrange your hands to make a picture -- a hand print tree, or sunburst, or rainbow.
See the Family Hand prayer in the month of May on the print version of the PWRDF Family Calendar.
PWRDF Story: Water in Tanzania
Donations to PWRDF have made a huge difference in Uhambingeto, Tanzania. Working through a partner, Idegenda Integrated Community Health Program, Diocese of Ruaha, the lives of about 10,000 people in five sub-villages have improved markedly.
It all started with water. PWRDF helped the community to build a gravity-fed water system from the mountains 12 km. away, and saved women from the great time and effort spent in gathering water and all the community avoided the danger of an unsafe water supply. Today, a new clinic has improved the lives of pregnant women and the nutrition of children.
Activity for ages 3-6: Handprint tree
1. Trace a child's hand on a piece of construction paper.
2. Cut out the hand print. Fold the wrist over.
3. Make a lot of paper paper hands (the number you'll need depends on the size of your tree). If project includes more than one child, put each child's name on his or her hand print.
4. Ask the children to make a wish for the children of the world and draw a picture of their wish -- an older child may want to write words of wishes on the hands.
5. Draw a triangle shape on a large piece of paper, this will be the outline of your tree.
6.Cut out a small rectangle of dark brown paper for the tree trunk. Glue the rectangle below the tree.
7. Glue the hand prints together in a tree shape, fingers pointing down, gluing the folded part of the wrist to the background. Start at the bottom of the tree. Starting with the second row, make the fingers overlap the next hand a little bit.
Optional: Write a message around the tree and decorate your tree with glitter, or paper ornaments.
One Well. Rochelle Strauss
Age 8+ Almost 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered with water. And all that water is connected — every raindrop, lake, underground river and glacier is part of a single global well. One Well shows how every one of us has the power to conserve and protect our global well — and why we need to pay attention. Available from Parent Books.
Activity for ages 6-10: Helping Handprint
1. Make a print of your own hand, or both hands, using ink or water-based paint. Use a light colour so that you can write on top of it.
2. Write down 5 ideas of how you can use your hands to help others.
3. Post it up somewhere where it will be a reminder to you.
Activity for ages 10-15: Paper Bag Handprint Journal
1. Lay 2 or more paper bags together, alternating ends.
2. Fold the bags in half and you have a "spine." You can sew a single line up the fold line to hold the book together or staple it along the spine.
3. Fold the book closed and punch holes alongside of the binding, in about 1/2". You can use these to bind your book after you have decorated it.
4.Decorate the pages of the book with your own handprints. You can do this by tracing and colouring them in, or using ink or water based paint to make a print of your image. Experiment with different designs on each page.
5. Bind the book using ribbon, strips of ripped fabric or string in each hole.
6. Use the pockets to collect: your own thoughts about how you can live out your faith and make a difference in the world; stories and photos of others who inspire you; inspirational quotes; articles from the news; notes about how you feel about the world and what you believe.
7. Make a book for or with a friend.
SWEET DEAL!
Share your family story with PWRDF and we send you a fair trade chocolate bar. More....
