Ronan wants you to join him on the Camino
The well known Gorta fundraiser Ronan Scully from Clara is undertaking the Camino de Santiago walk later this year and is looking for volunteers to join him. Scully has already signed up some participants to do the walk with him on the last part of the Camino trek which is just over 100Km.
A number of places are still left on the expedition, which takes place from May 25 to June 1, and Mr Scully is on the lookout for any participants who would like to join them. To take part, participants are asked to raise €2,000 in sponsorship support – which will cover all costs of a trip that will also include accommodation and guided walks along the Camino and also raise funds for projects that Gorta Self Help Africa work with in Africa.
With his role as a business developer for Gorta Self Help Africa, former Operation Transformation leader Ronan understands better than most the challenges faced by families all around Africa: “Since I started working with Gorta Self Help Africa the entire focus has been on food – and particularly how it can be grown in difficult conditions and tough climates in the developing world. I may have had my own struggles with food in the past, but the weight loss challenges that I faced on Operation Transformation a programme on RTE I appeared on a number of years ago are absolutely nothing to the ordeal that millions of Africans face in putting enough food on the table and providing for their families, simply to survive.
“These issues have come into sharp focus with the famine and drought in parts of Africa at present and especially in Ethiopia where some 10 million people and in Malawi where some 6.5 million people and children are affected with food shortages and hunger because of the effects of climate change, but at Gorta Self Help Africa we are continuing to say that while we must respond to the emergency, we can only help to bring an end to these terrible stories if we provide people with the wherewithal to live a life free from hunger and poverty. At Gorta Self Help Africa we are doing that by providing farming communities with good quality seed, by supporting the development of irrigation, and by a whole host of other measures including education and training that can give people some protection from the kinds of problems they are facing in parts of Africa today”.
For Ronan, the plight of the people of South Sudan, Kenya, Malawi, West and East Africa and Ethiopia is particularly troubling. An adoptive father of two little girls from Ethiopia, he says that it has been particularly tough to watch the pictures of the drought and effects of climate change on the news bulletins, or explain to six-year-old Sophie and an ten-year-old Mia what is happening in the country of their birth:
“It’s hard to explain to your children that there are people dying of hunger in the world, and particularly so when we know that this is not a disease they are suffering, but a situation that can be cured very easily.”
To find out more or to get an application form for the Camino Charity walk contact Ronan Scully on 0876189094, visit www.selfhelpafrica.org or email ronan.scully@selfhelpafrica.org or rachel.ohalloran@selfhelpafrica.org.