Major charity drive launched to provide aid to African country

A MAJOR charity initiative to provide medical and financial aid to a small country devastated by poverty and disease was launched yesterday.

The Action Lesotho project grew from initial contacts made when a team of athletes from the landlocked country near South Africa was based in Tralee, Co Kerry, for the 2003 Special Olympics.

Since then teams of volunteers from Kerry and Cork have regularly visited Lesotho to set up feeding programmes for some of the estimated 200,000 orphaned children in communities ripped apart by Aids and TB epidemics.

Classrooms were also built and equipped in local schools with arrangements made to teach children computer and carpentry skills. Action Lesotho employs four full-time co-ordinators and one part-time nurse.

The project backers have now launched a three-year strategic plan which aims to increase the ability of Lesotho people to get involved in self-help ventures through commercial rather than subsistence farming.

The plan was launched in Tralee yesterday by Minister of State Jan O’Sullivan, in the presence of the Irish ambassador to the Kingdom of Lesotho, Gerry Gervin, and the Lesotho ambassador to Ireland, Paramente Phamotse.

Spokesman Paul Hanrahan said: “The greatest need of the rural communities we are working with is for income and food. Most of them are hungry most of the time and rely on imported food which is becoming increasingly less affordable.

“As a result of the Aids epidemic, grain production is falling and land lies neglected. We wish to help local people to generate income by starting small businesses so we will provide training and help them to access start-up capital.”

The strategy also aims to encourage community development so people in Lesotho, which has a population of two million, can be empowered to tackle local problems and demand that government services are made available to deal with difficulties as they arise.

Former volunteer Pippa Kearon, from Waterville, Co Kerry has been appointed the project’s full-time representative in Lesotho, supervising local employees and volunteers so they are capable of spearheading all the projects themselves by 2014.

The Kingdom of Lesotho, a mountainous country totally surrounded by South Africa, has benefited from Irish government aid since 1975. Action Lesotho has contributed between €50,000 and €100,000 each year since 2006.