The Irish charity, Trócaire, is the official overseas development agency of the Irish Catholic church. It was set up by the Irish Catholic Bishops in 1973 to express the concern of the Irish Church for the suffering of the world’s poorest and most oppressed people. Trócaire works through global Catholic networks and with local partners on the ground. When they help people, they work with them, so that they drive the entire process themselves. Solutions are not imposed on the people they help. Instead, they become the authors of their own destiny.

For some years, Trócaire has been producing excellent resource material for the classroom. It is usually based around their work in a developing country and it is usually tied in with the season of Lent and their Lenten fund-raising campaign through the Trócaire fast boxes. The focus of the resources this year is the country of Honduras and five year old Digna tells the story of her life. Trócaire has made a huge amount of resource material available on their website. Resources include:

• Photo packs for both junior and senior pupils
• Posters
• Teacher resources
• Worksheets on poverty, climate change, fair trade and equality

Download the Trócaire Lenten Resources 2011 now. Trócaire also have lots of other School Resources to download.

This year Trócaire has also developed resources for the Interactive White Board (IWB), again based on the theme of Honduras. There are separate sections for junior and senior primary pupils. The junior section focuses on the life of five-year old Digna and the senior section focuses on the life of eight-year old Giselda. Pupils can learn about life in Honduras, about the communities these children live in and play some games. The IWB exercises can also be downloaded as .pdfs. You can access these Trócaire IWB Resources online now.