Clarinbridge community preparing for fundraiser tea party
The community of Clarinbridge in Galway is gearing up for its annual tea party as part of a fundraising effort for the east African country of Malawi.
As well as raising money, Mary Booth and her 'Dream Team' are preparing to fill a container with schoolbags, medical supplies, educational resources and boxes of reading glasses.
For over a decade Mary has been holding tea parties for various charities, raising over €70,000. Her focus has been on Malawi for the past four years.
The Project Malawi charity was set up by Laois teacher Andy Monaghan 10 years ago.
"I first visited this wonderful country five years ago and knew I had to do something to help. Our Project Malawi is centred on the Matandani school in a rural village where I ran a teacher-training programme," said Ms Booth, who is a retired teacher in her 70s.
"One of our neighbours, Frank O'Donovan, is a pilot with DHL. The company have really done their bit to help out every year.
"They help us transport 300kg of supplies free of charge so we're calling for around 200 schoolbags and pencil cases because the kids [there] have next to nothing.
"We're looking for everything from medical supplies to educational resources, including school bags - the kids there don't have them."
Mary saw firsthand in Malawi how teachers and pupils were struggling to cope with huge class sizes of up to 140 children. There were very few teaching resources and gaps in basic infrastructure such as water, electricity and toilets.
"Our project has helped to build several new classrooms, implement training programmes for teachers, invest in modern IT equipment and a wider range of teaching resources, as well as some sports facilities," she said.
While the main focus of their support has been the school, they have also helped deliver much-needed medical supplies to a local health centre and assisted the wider community in other ways too.
Among the most popular items headed for Malawi are boxes of reading glasses, both new and old.
"We take them all," laughed Mary, "my own optician gave me a lot of reading glasses before that had been left by customers who got new ones.
"I wasn't sure how well they would be received, but we couldn't believe the reaction - eye disease is commonplace in Malawi and you don't see a lot of people wearing glasses.
"So you can imagine the joy and excitement when somebody finds a pair that works! Men and women have started learning to read and write as a result of putting on these glasses," she added.
The tea party will take place in Clarinbridge on Thursday 29 May.
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