Edel takes a strict line on the fundraising front

If Edel Smith gets her way, West Clare will be resounding to the sight and sound of Strictly Come Dancing volunteers this November.
The Carrigaholt National School teacher, who is from Doonbeg, has been fundraising for and volunteering in the Cherven orphanage in Belarus since 2001. 
During that that period, Doonbeg Cherven Orphans, which is a registered charity, has helped a unit containing about 20 children. Their fundraising efforts have resulted in a multi-sensory room being installed, lifts have been repaired, children are brought on trips to Minsk and Ireland and some orphans have received specialist medical treatment.
However, Edel has noticed in recent years that some young adults, who were raised in the Cherven orphanage but have no special needs, are often not aided in any way.
“I want to build a halfway house, where the young adults in the Cherven orphanage can live on their own but still have someone there to look out for them,” Edel, who is due back in Cherven for the last two weeks in July, explained.
Edel’s idea is to generate sufficient (friendly) rivalry between West Clare parishes to encourage each community to enter a dancing couple into the West Clare Strictly Come Dancing Championship. Each volunteer couple would be given expert dancing tuition to help them avoid the possibility of having to be stretchered off the stage in Doonbeg hall, vowing to never again attempt a dancing step of any sort.
“We thought that there’s a lot of fun rivalry between parishes and it could add to the atmosphere. It’s not going to cover the entire cost of the house and it’s not going to cover the cost of the running of the house but it would go a long way in starting to make this happen. This is a long term plan,” Edel told The Clare Champion.
Ideally, Edel would love if she could persuade local tradesmen to donate some of their time to helping to build the halfway house. She broached the idea at a meeting in Doonbeg.
“What I said at this parish meeting was we could make it a parish effort. You basically go out there and all the labour is free because you’re bringing it with you and you know it’s going to be built exactly the way you need it to be built. That is my dream and I know that once we start on this, it’s going to consume every part of me because it’s something that I really believe in and it’s something that is badly needed,” Edel stressed. 
The exact location of the proposed halfway house has yet to be nailed down.
“There’s an adult orphanage just outside of Cherven and the director there is very positive about having the halfway house. Some are saying it has to be attached to an orphanage but part of me thinks that’s only taking a tiny baby step, whereas you need to make a little bit more of a leap to try and give them what they deserve. Because if you’re still inside the gates of an orphanage, people still see you as institutionalised. How do you de-institutionalise them if you don’t let them out?” she queried.
“They’ve never had to make decisions,” Edel said of young adults who have been reared in orphanages.  “They’ve never had ownership of anything so they don’t value things because things are given to them by the Irish and they don’t see that if you work, you earn money. That’s what Peter is seeing at the moment,” she said.
This plan was inspired by Peter, who is now 19 and was reared in the Cherven orphanage.
“The sad fact of it is if we didn’t intervene with Peter, he would go on to an adult institution. A boy who’s perfectly normal and who has been proven to have no special needs of any kind. How many more Peters are there, that are going to spend their life in institutional care simply because someone isn’t there to look after them? If we could start it, you wouldn’t know what could happen,” Edel suggested. 
Peter first came to Edel’s notice about 10 years ago.
“He was put in the orphanage when he was 10. He didn’t belong in a special needs orphanage. He has no special needs. This little blondie boy would tag along for a while when we’d be walking with the children in the wheelchairs. Then, when he was about 15, he started hanging around with us all the time,” Edel said.
She also recalled Peter making contact with his mother, whom he hadn’t spoken to for years.
“He rang and spoke to his mother for the first time in eight years last summer,” Edel said.
However, Peter hasn’t been reunited with his family and for various reasons, it’s looking unlikely. He is now living with what Belarussians call a ‘momma’ (a carer in an orphanage). 
“One of the mommas offered to take Peter into her home, which is a big commitment. She’s after taking on a huge responsibility. There’s a lot at stake here. He needs to have someone to look out for him, a parental figure of some sort. He’s earning a wage working and he’s keeping himself busy.
“What we want is for him to get an ­education. She wants that and I want that,” Edel noted.
Peter will visit West Clare in the first week of July. Edel acknowledges that perhaps younger orphans might get more sympathy than a young man but she feels that his needs are as important.
“A lot of people will see him as being a young man. With a child, people understand the need to mind them and protect them. But I’ve watched Peter since he was 10 years of age. I always thought when I started in Cherven that I’d help the children in the wheelchairs because they don’t get anything.
@But what I’ve come to realise in the last few years is that younger adults need our help as badly,” she maintained, noting that another orphan, Anton, who is now 16 and in a wheelchair, has benefited from his involvement with Doonbeg Cherven Orphans.
“He’s such a happy little boy. There’s a contentment with him that the older children that can walk don’t have. They’re actually the people that are worse off and I didn’t know this when I started,” Edel reflected.
Anybody interested in ­volunteering for the West Clare version of Strictly Come Dancing or in ­helping with the building of the halfway house in Cherven can contact Edel Smith at smith_edel@hotmail.com