Student seeks support for volunteer work

A 20-year-old student is fundraising to partly finance the cost of volunteering to combat HIV and Aids in a South African hospice.

Niamh Foley, Ballina, Killaloe, is currently studying Human Health and Disease in Dublin after graduating from St Anne’s Community School, Killaloe.

A former member of the Killaloe/Ballina’s Family Resource Centre’s youth initiative, she has appealed to people to support a coffee morning in the building this Friday from 11am to 2pm.

Two candidates are chosen every year to go on a global awareness programme (GAP) with EIL (Experiment in Living) Intercultural Learning to South Africa. This programme is a partially funded scholarship and Niamh and her friend Siobhán Hughes underwent a selection process before they were awarded this opportunity.

The scholarship is partly funded and each candidate has to fundraise a remaining €1,000 each.

The aim of the project is to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS to work towards eradicating the disease.

One in five people are infected with HIV in South Africa. The duo will be working in a palliative pediatric 16-bed children’s hospice called ThembaCare Athlone in Cape Town.

They will be talking and playing with the kids, helping to take care of them and have fun with them too as well as helping out in the day-to-day running of the hospice with the nurses.

“The plan is to help as much as we can while there for eight weeks but also gather materials such as interviews, photos and information to create a campaign and awareness in Ireland about what we saw and how the people are suffering with this disease,” Niamh explained.

“The main aim is to raise awareness to lead towards changes in Ireland, a country which has the power to improve the support and aid for developing countries, and to inform people here about the disease.

“The main message really is to spread the word, not the disease,” she added.
Niamh applied for this scholarship because she would like to work in the field when she finishes in university.

“This kind of work is all I’ve ever wanted to do so I’m really excited, nervous, apprehensive and thrilled all in one really. The reality of it hit me recently, it’s less than two weeks until I leave.

“I’m pretty sure that I won’t want to get on the plane in the airport, I might have to get Siobhán to push me up the steps,” she jokes.

“We would have really struggled without our friends, families and community encouraging us and can’t stress how great so many people have been,” she adds.

Anyone wishing to make donations can contact the resource centre.