Limerick Trócaire worker, Eoin Wrenn from Shanagolden, has urged people in his home county to support the charity’s appeal for donations.
The plea comes as over 26 million people continue to face malnutrition and the threat of famine across South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia due to prolonged drought.
Eoin said, “I know the difference support from Limerick has made to Trócaire’s work. It is no exaggeration to say that they are having an immediate, practical impact on families throughout East Africa. Our health centres and feeding programmes are saving lives but we need to continue our response and we need the public’s support to do that.”
Trócaire is currently reaching hundreds of thousands of people across the East Africa region with emergency food, water, sanitation and healthcare. This includes in South Sudan, a country gripped by a brutal civil war where millions of people have fled and Trócaire has been supporting 24,000 people.
The charity has been providing emergency food, water and supplies in the war torn country throughout the food crisis and there has been a significant improvement. Trócaire staff reported that early in the year people were too weak to stand at feeding distributions but after a few months it was visible people had more energy and their severe weight loss had stopped.
As part of the appeal, former two-weight world champion boxer Carl Frampton recently travelled to Kenya to see the work being carried out by Trócaire there.
Carl and his wife Christine visited a Trócaire feeding clinic for malnourished children receiving emergency food. He also met with young boxers at Mukuru slum in Nairobi, one of Africa’s largest slums where poverty, disease and violence is rife.
According to Carl “the suffering, the squalor and poverty that so many are enduring is heartbreaking, but then on the other side, there is the great work that is being done.
“It’s massively important to support the Trócaire appeal. The people of Ireland have shown time and again that they have an amazing affinity for, and solidarity with, people in the developing world who are facing crisis but seeing it first hand, I don’t think you could prepare yourself for something like that,” he said.
More information here
