Seventy-seven-year-old fundraiser and former aid worker, Alice Culliton from Mountmellick, is set to fast for Concern once again.
The Mountmellick woman will hold her annual 24-hour fast for Concern Worldwide which will run alongside a collection in Super Valu, Mountmellick, and at various venues in Portlaoise on Friday, November 29.
From Harbour Street, the former home economics teacher has worked in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Angola, Bangladesh and Thailand over 22 years.
After her return home in 1999, she taught in Portlaoise prison, did community childcare work in Banagher and worked with vulnerable children in Dublin and Kildare through Extern Ireland. However, she has not forgotten those she left behind.
This year’s Concern appeal will raise funds for the work of the Kayole Soweto health centre in Nairobi, Kenya.
It helps children like Hawi Njeri who was brought to the clinic by her mother, Susan, after a home visit from Concern supported community workers.
Featured in this year’s pleas for funds by Concern, Susan made the hour long journey to the centre by foot with Hawi, through dark crowded alleys and narrow muddy streets where open sewers run between the densely packed makeshift shanty houses made of old metal sheets and mud.
When Susan and her baby arrived at the clinic, the staff knew the warning signs of acute malnourishment straight away as Hawi was dangerously small and lay listless on Susan’s shoulder.
With global food prices growing, the city’s population increasing and unemployment rising, people are finding it increasingly difficult to afford the food they need for their children.
Tens of thousands of children in Kayole are living in a spiralling crisis of extreme poverty, according to Concern.
Hawi was put on an immediate course of emergency therapeutic food to help her gain weight and provide her with the nutrients and vitamins her body desperately needed.
Susan works as often as she can, in salons, washing clothes and babysitting, but rising food prices make providing for her children a struggle, Concern said.
“It’s hard to figure out where to begin or stop in view of the horrific global problems and the suffering of especially children and their mothers,” said Alice.
“The findings in the 2024 Global Hunger Index report are extremely worrying and upsetting,” said Concern Worldwide’s chief executive, David Regan, who has witnessed first-hand the impact of hunger in many of the world’s poorest countries.
“More must be done to guarantee that everyone has the right to food so that we can prevent famine and treat malnutrition early,” he said.
“We should not have situations where children are so hungry and malnourished that they can’t even speak or cry.
“Globally, around 733 million people face hunger each day due to a lack of access to a sufficient amount of food. Around 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.
“That hunger persists on such a huge scale with all the resources in the modern world is deeply troubling,” the Concern CEO said.
“It is also alarming that progress made in addressing hunger has stalled largely due to widespread conflicts, and the increasing impacts of climate change.
“Acute food insecurity and the risk of famine are rising and starvation is proliferating as a weapon of war,” he said.
In Nairobi, one in five children are suffering from malnutrition, and in need of life-saving treatment. Last year, Concern screened more than 70,000 children for malnutrition in Nairobi.
“I see mothers whose kids are starving, and end up on the programme, but, I did not expect my Hawi to end up on it as well. I always sympathised with mothers whose children ended up on the programme, but, I never thought it would be my baby.”
Susan fears for her future and the futures of her three other children as well.
“I was born and raised here in Kayole when life was much simpler. It’s not hard to get food around here, but it’s very pricey, the price of maize meal flour was 120 shillings, and now it costs 200 shillings.
“Usually, 200 shillings is all I have to work with. I don’t know why prices have gone high, but, I do my best to cater for my family.”
The funds raised by Alice will go towards alleviating this growing crisis. She is working to do what she can in a world where so many are faced with starvation.
“Seeing all the news reports and knowing about those unreported places of conflict is so hard. The horrible crises of no food is a terrifying situation for mothers minding their children.”
Donations can also be made to Concern through the Christmas fast fundraiser page: https://fundraise.concern.net/alice-culliton-1
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