Thank you to the Irish public for generosity

On behalf of everyone at GOAL, I want to express my gratitude to the Irish people for the encouragement and support they gave us during the past year, and since our foundation in 1977.

GOAL has spent over $1 billion on the poor over the past 34 years, which would not have been possible without the matchless generosity of the Irish.

During 2011, we distributed €70 million across 13 developing countries.

In Kenya we completed building 8,085 houses for the victims of violence, and have begun work on another 2,000.

We finished 2,000 shelters and several hundred latrines and wash blocks in Haiti.

GOAL dispensed clean water to 600,000 people, and over 90 metric tons of food aid and food to malnourished women and 33,500 children in the Somali region of Ethiopia. We provided water and sanitation for Somali refugees at Dadaab camp in Kenya, and food and essential household items at the Dolo Ado refugee camp in Ethiopia.

Over the next three months we intend installing facilities at 100 schools in Kolkata. We will build 500 houses for Aids orphans and vulnerable people in Uganda. And 46 GOAL centres in Sudan and South Sudan will continue delivering services to over 900,000 people.

I extend best wishes for the new year to all who make such work possible.

John O’Shea

GOAL

PO BOX 19

Dún Laoghaire

Co Dublin