Fermanagh girls: Paula Donnelly (Irvinestown) , Catriona Curran (Donagh) and Jemma Dolan (Belleek) with some local children
AFTER three weeks in Ethiopia helping to build 15 homes in disadvantaged areas, three Fermanagh girls have returned home with a renewed appreciation for life.
Jemma Dolan from Belleek, Paula Donnelly from Irvinestown and Catriona Curran from Donagh were part of an 18 strong team from the University of Ulster, who volunteered to go out and work for Habitat for Humanity for three weeks at the start of June.
The three students carried out building work in a community 250 miles outside Addis Ababa, the capital city. Jemma told the Herald a bit more about the work they three were involved in.
“We worked on 15 houses in total, totally finishing two. We dug foundations, carried sticks, sand and stones, filled in foundations with boulders and soil, ‘weaved’ the sticks together to create the walls, manually mixed cement, ‘chickaed’ (plastered) the walls of the houses with donkey faeces and painted the house with goats’ pee. We literally worked on every stage of the houses, alongside the people who would be living in the houses. It was pleasure to work with them but their strength put us to shame.”
She continued: “I loved every minute of it. There were one or two days when I was tired, too warm, my muscles ached and thought ‘I couldn’t be bothered with this today’, but a hug from one of the kids on site, a cup of coffee from the hosting family or a word of encouragement from the team and I was right as rain. Not once did I regret the trip or want to go home.”
Jemma and her Fermanagh compatriots admitted their shock at the ‘horrendous’ conditions, with even basic amenities non-existent.
“The poverty we witnessed was worse than I had ever imagined, worse than the adverts on the TV, worse than the Trocaire boxes,” noted Jemma. “When we arrived at our accommodation there was no running water, which meant no showers or no flushing toilets so for the first few days we had to shower out of buckets. At this stage we were lucky – we went on site and the toilet was hole in the ground. We thought that was bad until we visited some of the homeless people that would be receiving houses. These people were living in shelters worse than what farm animals live in over here.
“That night we all sat together and cried; cried out of sadness, cried out of anger, cried out of guilt. I know there is a recession here and people are experiencing really difficult times but compared to the Ethiopians, we are millionaires. They are so happy with so little yet we are always looking for more, we really don’t know how lucky we are.”
Paula, Catriona and Jemma would like to thank everyone who donated towards their trip and commended the generosity of the people of Fermanagh, particularly those in the Belleek, Garrison, Irvinestown and Donagh areas. They also wished to thank to the Fisher Foundation for their generous donation.
“No words can describe our gratitude but you can be safe in the knowledge that your donation changed the life of 15 families. But people can still donate to Habitat for Humanity Northern Ireland via Paula, Catriona or me or www.justgiving.com/Jemma-Dolan1.”
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