From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Aug 05 2008 - 09:50:49 EDT
Proud parents visit Barbara's charity school
By Alan O'Keeffe <http://www.herald.ie/national-news/>
*Tuesday August 05 2008*
A proud and poignant first visit to Africa by an elderly Irish couple will
result in more children getting a chance to escape poverty.
Bill and Margaret Gill will make the long journey to Eritrea to visit a
school built in memory of their daughter Barbara Gill whose passion to help
the poor inspired a huge charitable response after her tragic death.
Barbara (49) was killed on Dublin's quays when struck by a lorry while
cycling her bicycle.
She was a college lecturer who spent years educating teachers on Third World
development issues. She visited Ethiopia shortly before her death and had
decided to raise funds to build a badly needed school in a poverty hit
region.
*Raised*
After her death, the Barbara Gill Memorial Fund raised well over €100,000 to
build a school for 1,200 pupils. In October, her parents will leave their
farm in Clonbullogue, Co Offaly for a week to visit the new school.
The couple intend to hear about the further needs of the local population
during the visit. They believe the memorial fund may have enough money to
help build a second school in the region and maybe a residence to encourage
teachers to move to the area.
Bill Gill (77) told the Herald: "We just have to see the school that Barbara
had wished to build. Barbara was planning to run a marathon to raise funds.
People were brilliant after she died and helped raise a lot of money.
"Helping to make her wishes come true in building the school has been a
comfort," he said.
Barbara and her life-partner Ruth O'Dwyer, who lived in Damerstown,
Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, had rejoiced in the birth of their baby son
Stephen not long before her death. Bill and Margaret are reunited regularly
with Stephen and Ruth.
The couple will travel to Africa with their daughter Sandra Wilson and their
granddaughters Clara Wilson (15) and Kate Vallelly (16).
Barbara had travelled to Eritrea with the charity Self Help International.
Today, the Irish charity merged with a British charity Harvest Help to form
a new entity named Self Help Africa.
Speaking at the launch in Dublin today, chief executive Ray Jordan said that
grassroots food production must be put at the heart of international
development efforts.
"There is a growing acceptance that farming and rural development is the
key, if Africans are to break free from hunger and poverty," he said. "Up to
80pc of Africans rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. It must be at
the heart of what we do."
- Alan O'Keeffe
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