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Coolmine RFC members visit Ethiopia

In the past few months two members of Coolmine rugby club, Robin Cunningham and Mick Phillips, went on a trip to Ethiopia to work for charitable concerns. This is a massive African country with a land mass equal to the combined size of France and Spain, two of Europe’s largest countries. It has a population of 78 million, 52% of which is under 18 years of age and 70% of which lives in rural areas. The country, like much of Africa, has a huge AIDS problem and it is estimated that there will be over 1.8 million AIDS orphans in Ethiopia by 2010. Robin and Mick tell their story. Robin Cunningham and Mick Phillips in Ethiopia

“Our decision to travel to Ethiopia arose from a chance reunion with an old teacher from Coolmine Community School. Fr. Michael McCullough, a member of the Vincentians Order, (as in Castleknock College) who was a teacher in Coolmine before moving to work with the travelling community in Dublin. He later founded The Vincentian Lay Missions (VLM) who are now working closely with the Daughters of Charity (DOC) in Ethiopia. Fr. Michael invited us to visit some projects the VLM and DOC were engaged in and so we finally got to travel back in March.

Our base for our visit was a town called Mekele, one hour’s flight to the north of Addis Ababa. Here the DOC runs a feeding programme for young children, a Health Clinic, an Eye Clinic (Blindness is a major problem in Ethiopia), a Women’s Promotion Centre, teaching skills like sewing, embroidery and catering with a view to starting their own business as well as a Kindergarten.

It also provides a hostel for girls from remote areas and a fantastic Street Children’s Project catering for 200 children providing food, clothing, night shelter, hygiene facilities, medical care and counselling along with an education and skills development programme. They also have a housing programme for the very poor and female-headed households. Homelessness, severe poverty and the ever growing spread of HIV Aids make for a very worrying situation.

We also visited the very extreme northerly and remote area of Alitena on the war torn border with Eritrea where the DOC and VLM run another Clinic, Hostel and School. This area which is very mountainous also experiences severe poverty and they are totally dependant on a good rainy season and the retention of peace.

In Addis Ababa we also visited an Irish sister, Sr. Mary Mitchell from Galway, who runs a school for the most disadvantaged children. She not alone educates them but also clothes them, feeds them and supplies their books. This project, like all the others we visited, receives little or no Ethiopian government funding, instead relying on assistance from charitable agencies like Trócaire, the corporate sector, or other groups or private support to survive.

With a little funding they could continue to run existing works or even expand their projects. Our euros would go a long way towards assisting these fantastic people. Amid this sorry situation the people remain very happy, and most hospitable. As we experienced far too often, every child will gladly share their last bit of food with you.

Truly, we must pay tribute to all the sisters of the Daughters of Charity and to our good friend John Bradley from VLM for all that they are engaged in. You could only be impressed by their energy, enthusiasm and their loving care to the poor and needy. Over the next few months it is our intention to run a number of fundraising events to help these great people help those less well off than ourselves.”

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