T'You Are So Little.... But You Can Make Such a Difference'
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VOLUNTEERS with the Southern Sudan Children's Literacy Foundation. (L-R) [BACK] Jilasio Lokuawii, Mario Bino, Trish Gallagher, Augustino Lucano. [FRONT] Catherine Therien, Augustino Akio and Rose McKiernan. |
By CATHOLINE BUTLER
CALGARY - Rose McKiernan is a woman on a mission. For almost 20 years she has worked to help new Canadian immigrants. She has helped many find work, accommodation and clothing, and also to overcome their language difficulties.
McKiernan an immigrant herself, emigrated from Ireland in 1982, along with her husband Peter and two daughters, Maeve and Orla, and settled in Calgary, Alberta.
Now, McKiernan has taken on one of her biggest volunteering projects to date. She is spearheading a fundraising project to help build a school, a hospital, and have a well dug to provide fresh drinking water for the people in a village in Southern Sudan.
I recently spoke with Rose about this massive undertaking. She told me the name of her organization is the Southern Sudan Children's Literacy Foundation. To date, the project has been successful in raising CDN$20,000 and the school has now been built to accommodate 300 students.
Materials for construction were sourced from Kenya and some of the Sudanese now living in Calgary returned to their village to help build the school. They travelled to Kenya to buy the building materials and rented a truck to transport the goods overland as shipping from Kenya would be very costly.
Rose related how hundreds of people from the village walked for nine hours to the Sudanese border to meet the truck that was carrying the materials to build the school. They carried the materials back to the village so that the truck could be returned to Kenya in order to save money.
"On the first day that the school was opened," said Rose, "over 600 students turned up for classes. Since the school can only accommodate 300 students, they have had to alternate the classes in order for all the children to attend school. The people in the village were so ecstatic when the school was built, they danced in the sand."
Volunteer teachers are now urgently needed for the school in the village. McKiernan's next project is also to raise the funds to build the hospital and dig the well for the water.
Rose said that the area where the village is located in Sudan is safe now but there was a devastating attack on the village some time ago. "The village was attacked by rebels and they killed all the goats, which is the main source of food for villagers. They raped the women and as a result some of the women and children have ended up with AIDS.
"I had a garage sale and raised $400 which was enough for the people to buy more goats."
In order to fundraise publicly, the foundation has applied for a charitable number to issue tax receipts but this could take a long time to receive.
In the meantime, McKiernan being the resourceful woman that she is, has done smaller projects, and along with friends and neighbours who are sympathetic to the cause, has managed to raise a significant amount of money so far.
Among McKiernan's fundraising projects, she runs an "Out of School Care Program," where she takes care of children before and after school from 7 AM to 9 AM and again from 3 PM to 6 PM. The children attend St. Dominic Elementary School.
"The children in my school care program have really done a lot of work to help raise funds for the village," said Rose. "They put together a book of drawings that we sold and raised $1,000.
"They have also done a lot of work in collecting items and working at the many garage sales that we have held to raise funds for the village. So, the children are very involved. I always tell them, 'you are so little, but you can still make such a difference'."
If you can help financially or by volunteering with the Southern Sudan Children's Literacy Foundation, call Rose at (403) 247-4732.
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