Secondary: Current Assemblies

HARVEST
By Helen Lycitt


Suitable for Key Stage Three


Aim

To remember those in need around the world and encourage students to change their attitudes towards them.

Preparation and materials

• Seven A4 sheets, each with a letter of H A R V E S T written on them as large as possible.
• Different foods from around the world.
• Information on fair trade:
  http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/campaign/index.htm
  http://www.traidcraft.co.uk/
  http://www.unicef.org/
  http://www.tearfund.org/
  http://www.cafod.org.uk/
  

Assembly

1. Introduce the assembly by telling your audience that today you want to consider what harvest is really all about.
2. You will need seven volunteers. Provide each volunteer with one of the A4 sheets showing a letter from the word HARVEST. Get them to stand in the right order, so they spell the word HARVEST.
3. Ask the volunteers to arrange themselves so that the letters spell EARTH. (Obviously there will be two left over, who should be encouraged to stand aside.)
4. Comment that at this time of year we remember and celebrate all the wonderful resources the earth provides. Show some of the examples you have and briefly tell them how hard it can be for people in many parts of the world to get a fair price for producing things we take for granted.
5. Ask the volunteers to move, so that their letters spell the word STARVE.
6. Ask students how often they go home and say things like ‘I’m starving!’, when all they really mean is ‘I’m very hungry’. Each day, all around the world people really are starving: many do not know where their next meal is coming from, and many more will die from malnutrition.
7. Suggest that we should stop taking our food for granted and stop wasting so much.
8. Prompt your volunteers to spell the word SHARE.
9. Remind students how lucky we are to have food in abundance, while others starve. Observe that, as Gandhi said, ‘there is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed’.
10. Suggest that they might like to give up eating something (e.g. a favourite chocolate bar) for two weeks and donate the money to a charity like Christian Aid, Tearfund or Cafod.
11. If we share what we have in abundance, we can begin to create a harvest for the world.
12. Ask your volunteers to spell out HEART.
13. Observe that giving money at this time of year is an important way of helping the most needy in the world, but that this is only superficial. What we really need is to make a change of heart.
14. We must consider our lifestyle and find a way to live more simply, so that those people suffering and starving might simply live.

*Other words you could incorporate into this assembly include HAVES (i.e. we are the ‘haves’, we must consider the ‘have nots’); EARS (you could encourage them to use these to listen to your message); HASTE (encourage them to act now on global poverty); VAST (to exemplify the scale of the problem); REST (perhaps an alternative way to end, suggest you need one!).

Prayer

This prayer can be done either with or without the A4 letters:

HARVEST time is here again.
We HAVE brought THE flowers, fruit and vegetables
that we HAVE grown in THE summer HEAT.
We STARE AT THE HARVEST of EARTH and SEA.
We RAVE over THE lovely flowers arranged in A VASE.
Thank you, Lord God, for HARVEST.

We throw good food away as TRASH for RATS to EAT
AT an alarming RATE.
We HAVE so much; while millions STARVE.
SAVE us from greed and selfishness.
Help us, Lord, to SHARE THE good things you HAVE given,
that everyone may HAVE enough to EAT, STAVE off THE pangs of hunger and AVERT starvation.

Take away all HATE from our HEARTS
and fill THE EARTH with your love from EAST to west and back again.
HEAR our prayer, Lord of the HARVEST.

Amen.

Music

‘Harvest for the World’ by The Christians

Hymn

‘For the Fruits of His Creation’ (Mission Praise, 52).