Case Studies of Irish Aid-funded, Spiritan-led development work
Mozambique
Amongst the families who benefited directly from Irish Aid funding in recent years was the Bolacha family in the Mutauanha slum in the northern Mozambican city of Nampula. Living in a mud hut with neither electricity nor running water, the family of 6 had been dependent on the small income Francisco, the father of the family, was making as a tailor.
Irish Aid funding for personnel via IMRS /
Misean Cara allowed the Irish Spiritans in Mozambique to set up and begin to run a sewing school in 2006 and to put Francisco’s excellent tailoring skills to good use by employing him as the instructor in the sewing school. As a result of this, he has over the past three years been saving money, had electricity installed in his house, and been slowly building a home out of breeze blocks beside his mud hut. This year he saved his salary to buy a motorbike which his wife and older children are using in the small business they have set up of going to the countryside to buy fruit and veg, which they then sell in the city.
One of his daughters, who had faced severe obstacles in her childhood due to illnesses and the hardships of slum life, has now been able to attend computer school also through Irish Aid funding. The same funding will allow the Spiritan project to offer the best student from the present computer course a job as librarian in the community library (also Irish Aid-funded) running in the same centre; at this stage Francisco’s daughter looks likely to be the successful student. The Bolacha family are an example in their community and a clear sign that advancement is possible, not by waiting on handouts, but through dedication, and taking whatever opportunities arise.
Irish Aid’s funding offered this family such opportunities and any cut to the funding may mean fewer other families could similarly benefit.
Pakistan
The following is an outline on how the cutbacks in Irish Aid are affecting and will continue to affect some of the poorest and most vulnerable in this country.
The Irish Spiritans are running eight primary schools for the families of landless peasants of an outcast Hindu tribal group, Marwari Bheels, in the south Punjab. Irish Aid funding has been hugely important as the parents of the children are unable to pay even the small fees or buy the school books. (They do contribute in-kind, by constructing the mud building and keeping it in good repair.) The children are eager to learn but very few attend the government schools as they suffer discrimination in that, being non-Muslim, they are not allowed to drink from the common water pump.
Were additional funding available, existing demand for additional schools / teachers could be met. A cut to existing funding may mean the loss of teachers in some schools with the consequent likely drop-out of some students.
Kenya
Mbarak Morowa is 42 years old and married to Esha. They have eight children, four boys and four girls. A farmer from Vukoni Chini, a village with 870 households, of which he is the headman, he was selected by the community as a beneficiary of a Food for Work project in 2008.
During the project funded by Irish Aid (through Trócaire and Cafod), a feed-back Suggestion Box method in all the participating villages allowed for issues to be addressed. It was noted that, because of drought, crops were withering and had dried up and the harvest, due from November 2008, had failed leading to hunger.
Most people in Vukoni village then had just one meal a day, a lunch of porridge of maize flour boiled in water. The resulting weakness from the hunger increases the risk of illness and the need for trips to the dispensary.
As a result of the drought, people stopped going to the farms. To put something on the table for their families, some went looking for casual labour, some resorted to crime, others hunting wild animals for food – if caught, they risk a jail sentence – while others would just loiter around killing time or begging.
To deal with this problem a number of people from Vukoni and Bububu villages suggested that the purchase for them of ‘Money Maker’water pumps so that they could irrigate their farms and have a harvest. Funds were secured from Irish Aid to purchase 14 pumps for three villages.
People went back to the farms. Although there are not enough pumps for everybody, there is hope that your turn will come to get water for your farm and you will harvest something for your household. All those who used the pumps have harvested and others waiting to harvest are keen to use them. Over 2,000 household lives have been saved.
Now the children of Mr. Morowa can go to school and over the week-end assist their father to water the farm. He harvested three 90kg bags of cowpeas, several kilos of spinach and kales in the period Jan – May 2009 while more is still on the farm. He has planted more beans and maize and hopes to harvest in September 2009.
If this support is discontinued, death through famine is a real risk.
