4 days ago
Organisation which employs Gena Heraty 'shocked' over kidnapping
The Chairperson of the Board of Trustees for NPH Ireland, the organisation which employs aid worker Gena Heraty, has spoken of the shock at the abduction of Ms Heraty and seven others, including a three year old child.
Jessica Mullins told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland that everybody at NPH was 'really disheartened' at what had happened.
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'Gena is so highly regarded within the communities that she works for and does such amazing work that it really is shocking that this unfortunate series of events is after occurring.'
Ms Mullins said that Ms Heraty would be 'putting on a brave face', not just for herself, but for everybody else and would probably be 'trying to negotiate her way out.
'But no doubt there's also an element of fear there'.
Ms Heraty had great resilience, she said. Testament to that was the fact that she had spent over 30 years in Haiti despite the increasing volatility.
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'It would be a tough environment to work in and to grow up in. It's rife with poverty, civil unrest. It just shows her resilience. She has showed up every day regardless of how volatile or how tough things get on the ground over in Haiti.'
'For Gena I would think this isn't a job, it's a vocation and like one of her colleagues said to us yesterday it's her true mission in life and she really is an amazing person and just serves with love and compassion and dignity and she's probably one of the most selfless people I've ever met.'
Meanwhile, Infectious diseases expert Dr Louise Ivers, Executive Director of the Centre for Global Health, has spoken of the deep commitment of abducted aid worker Gena Heraty to the people of Haiti.
'I've known Gena since 2008 and we've remained quite friendly over time. Everything you've been reading about Gena over the last few days is true. She's an absolutely fantastic person. She's a kind person. She's completely committed to the children and young people who she takes care of there in Haiti. She's just an absolute delight. A lovely, lovely woman,' she told Newstalk Breakfast.
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'When you think of aid worker, you tend to have a picture of somebody who's come in, they're doing important work, but it's temporary, you know, they're kind of the foreigner, they drop in, they are responding to a specific crisis, and then usually they're leaving.
'Gena has been there for over 30 years. She's part of the community, she's fluent in Haitian Creole, she's a well-known entity around, she is really part of the fabric of the organisation and the area where she's living, so it's really a little bit of a different perspective in my mind.
'I don't know how she would describe herself, if that's the word she would use, but she's just a really, really important person in the community and doing tremendous work, work that is hard and working with young people and children that can be sometimes very difficult to take care of in difficult circumstances but committed nonetheless to it.
'But one of the challenges in Haiti Is that it's such a relentlessly challenging place and for many people that is paralysing because it seems like it's just too difficult to make any progress there. But if you have the attitude of one positive thing, I think it can help you see a path forward and so that's what I see in Gena, you know, always kind of looking for that one thing that she can do or one good thing that has happened in the day.
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Dr Ivers said that Ms Heraty was more than an aid worker, she was a mother to the children in the orphanage. 'She's committed to that place and to the community and to especially the children with disabilities in her house that she cares for, she's a mother to them. She's not naive. She knows the situation.
"Everybody there knows the situation and it takes a tremendous amount of resolve and commitment to doing the right thing and doing a good thing. So I really admire her tremendously and I am worried about her and hope that grace will be shown to her and her colleagues, and that they will be released safely.'
