Tag Archives: Self Help Africa

THREE of Clare’s best known players recently returned from a historic trip to Africa, where they kick started a bid to plant more than a million trees to combat climate change. Clare players Podge Collins, Dean Ryan, and Eimear Kelly joined 50 leading GAA stars to compete in the first ever ‘Plant the Planet Games’ in Nairobi, Kenya, on a visit that also saw them plant the first thousand trees in a GPA-backed tree planting effort to tackle climate change in Africa. Each of the participating players, who included inter-county hurlers, footballers and camogie players from 23 different counties, were tasked with raising €10,000 in sponsorship to support the effort.  The group’s collective total has already topped half a million euro, with funds still coming in. The initiative was organised by Galway dual player Alan Kerins Warriors for Humanity in conjunction with development charity Self Help Africa, and is also being supported by Kenyan Olympic medalist and world record holding …

FOUR leading Clare GAA stars took off for Africa this week to take part in a project to plant a million trees and raise awareness of the impact that climate change is having on some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Clare GAA stars Podge Collins, Dean Ryan, Ellen Roche and Eimear Kelly have joined 50 sportsmen and women from across the country on a week-long trip to Kenya, which included playing a series of GAA matches billed as the ‘Plant the Planet Games’, which took place in Nairobi at the weekend. Participants aren’t just raising awareness about climate change either, as they are collectively aiming to raise more than €350,000 in sponsorship support, to plant a million trees in Africa and support the efforts of Irish development charity Self Help Africa to combat the effects of climate change amongst small-scale farming communities. The event is being organised by former Galway dual-player Alan Kerins ‘Warriors for Humanity,’ the Gaelic Players …

I MET with former Primary School principal in Mullagh, Co. Clare, Seán McMahon and church gate collector organiser in Clare for Self Help Africa in Ennis last week, writes Ronan Scully. We spoke of the need for volunteers across County Clare for the next three to four weekends to help out with our charity church gate collections.   Self Help Africa, as you might be aware, is an agricultural development charity and the official charity of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA). The upcoming collections are the first to be held in County Clare since before the coronavirus pandemic, and we need every bit of help they can get in order to mobilise a local network of support. I know that people are finding it challenging at present because of rising fuel prices and cost of living, but it is nothing compared to the challenges being endured by Africa’s poorest. They have seen prices of fuel and fertiliser spiral out of …

SCHOOLCHILDREN from over 20 Clare national schools have joined a campaign that’s planting more than a million trees in Ireland and Africa this year. In the lead up to Christmas, close to 160 class groups at national schools across the county will hold tree planting ceremonies on school grounds, local parks and public land, and will lend their backing to communities who will be planting tens of thousands of new trees in Uganda, Kenya, Senegal and Malawi before the end of the year. The schools initiative is part of the One Million Trees campaign, which will see Self Help Africa plant over a million trees this year.  The campaign is being coordinated by Clare native Sean McMahon, the former principal of Mullagh National School and a former President of the INTO teachers union. The campaign is being backed by the INTO,  and will see native Irish seedlings being distributed for planting by each participating class group. Workshops, collections and other …

Ronan Scully, Spancilhill, writes about his recent visit to Uganda with teachers and pupils from Coláiste Lurgan in Inverin, Galway IT takes two days to travel from a school tuck-shop in Inverin, County Galway to the poor homes of Kayunga in Uganda but, in a very real sense, the journey is one of a million miles. After two days of travel, your eyes are heavy and your legs are stiff but, in Kayunga, your mind is racing. Your first thought is to wonder how people could live in such poverty; your second is to wonder how you can help them out of it. I had travelled to the rural district in East Africa to see the work of Irish development organisation Self Help Africa, in the company of a very special group. For the last 12 years, the pupils of Coláiste Lurgan in Inverin have been raising money, through the school tuck-shop, to support projects that work with some of …