Maintaining Hope for a cold beer

Gerry O'Donoghue often wonders about that cold beer and a swim he didn't have in a Nairobi hotel ten years ago, writes Brian Byrne. "It's called 'counter-factual speculation'," he grins. "Better known as the 'what if?' syndrome."

The fact of it anyhow is that he turned down the beer and took the option of visiting an orphanage. A decision that ultimately turned his life upside down. "I still find it hard to describe what happened, except to say that my reason for being in Kenya in the first place faded away very quickly. How children could be in the conditions I found just upset me."

Backstepping a bit, an earlier seminal moment was when he was making tea for his wife Julie, in the kitchen. He heard a radio appeal from Refugee Trust for a fundraising climb of Mount Kilimanjaro, in aid of victims of the tsunami which had wreaked havoc on the coast of Thailand. "I brought Julie her tea and told her I was going to climb Kilimanjaro. She said 'fine'."

Being principal of Scoil Bhride in Athgarvan, he got great support through the pupils, and raised a lot of money to make the trek up the mountain. The cold beer or visit Shelter Children's Home choice came when his group arrived back to Nairobi two days early because they'd had good weather for the climb. "I can't say that I wasn't tempted by the beer, but because the Athgarvan children had helped me raise so much money for the tsunami cause, I thought I should go to the orphanage so that I'd have a story to bring back to them."

Gerry on his first visit to Shelter.

When he got back home, the situation at Shelter was more than a story for his Scoil Bhride pupils. It was a troubling experience for the west Clare-born teacher, preying on his mind. "I went back to Refugee Trust and asked them if there was anything we could do? I was thinking in terms of fundraising, maybe send some food, medicine. But they said that this wasn't really their brief, which was about sustainability and micro-business development."

After a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing — Gerry cheerfully admits it was 'pestering' — he got a deal that if he could put together a group of volunteers who raised their placement fee, and could contribute to building accommodation needed at the school for volunteers, Refugee Trust would sponsor the project. "So that's what we did with the first expedition. It was mostly with people from Kilcullen (where Gerry taught first, and where he met Julie)."

The group of 31 went out and built the accommodation at the Shelter Home. They also rewired classrooms, and upgraded the institution's sewerage system. Then they came home. But the bug causing Gerry's mental itch came home again too. Along with others in the group, he was mulling on the experience, and they concluded that there might be better ways of continuing the process.

"Sue Rhein, who was at the time the treasurer of the Parents Association in Scoil Bhride, was one of the first to say 'yes'. We decided to start our own organisation, and use as a template of how not to do it the mistakes we believed had been made first time out." Others also said 'yes' to the idea, which became the Maintain Hope charity. The following year they had 25 volunteers, many of them the 'same suspects' from the first expedition.

Volunteers.

"We built accommodation for the children, and we started building the first classroom. And since then we have built ten classrooms at Shelter, paid teachers for three years, and supported graduate pupils through third level education. For every one of our volunteer builders, we'd have maybe four Kenyans working. So there's a fantastic mix of people. In fact, most of our 'builders' wouldn't have tradesman's experience, and they would learn a lot from the Kenyans. The plastering techniques they use, for instance, are extraordinary."

The most recent construction work at Shelter Home has been the provision of laundry facilities, and a kitchen. The laundry was built courtesy of Pat Finnerty, a friend of Gerry's, who endowed the charity in the memory of his wife Marion, after whom the facility is named.

Maintain Hope has become a recognised byword in Kildare and beyond, raising funds for its Kenyan work by a variety of means — including concerts in locations such as the restored 12th century St Mary's Church on Castlemartin Estate, courtesy of Sir Anthony and Lady O'Reilly. "I'm always looking for new ways to raise money, and we had a first parachute jump fundraiser earlier this year. This winter, we're having a sponsored climb of Lugnaquilla."

Annual 'expeditions' to Shelter by regular and new volunteers have borne fruit over the decade, and now Shelter Home is virtually self-sufficient. "Financially, the school is stand-alone. We now have no responsibility except for mentoring. But in the meantime we had requests from schools on the coast, through people we knew. The projects, in the Kikambala area, needed to be kick-started."

Kickstarting school projects in Kenya means co-producing with local politicians and authorities. So Maintain Hope built initial classrooms in three places, to which the local politicians added their own from discretionary funds, and eventually the projects reached the stage where they could become government-run schools. They now provide education for more than 3,000 students. "I'm not saying that this wouldn't have happened anyway, because the need for the schools was there. But they often depend on an NGO or a donor to get the ball rolling. We were in the happy position that we had the expertise, the experience, and the contacts."

Expedition 2010.

Although it could be expected that donor fatigue might have set in after ten years, Gerry says this doesn't seem the case with Maintain Hope. "It's no small thing to raise €2,500 each as a volunteer, but we have people who have come out with us six, seven times. So there's a huge determination, and it's an endorsement for what we're doing."

An American NGO has now become involved with Shelter, and Maintain Hope is happy to let them carry on with further development there. And for the first time, this year the charity has no capital building project to worry about. "It means that we have an opportunity now to examine where we've been, where we are now, and what we want to do in the future."

Charity, graduating this year.

That future for the moment seems to be centred on the three schools on the coast, providing equipment, materials, and sometimes teaching expertise. But there's also another children's home on the horizon. "One of our own students from Shelter, Charity, wasn't able to speak when I met her first ten years ago, because of trauma she had suffered as a child. But we saw quickly she was very intelligent, and we funded her through Kenyatta University, and she is graduating this year in media studies. She's also on the board of another children's home, and this is where we've got involved."

At the moment, that home comprises 25 children, living in a rented house. In May, Gerry went over to begin negotiations for a plot of land near to where Shelter is located. "Apart from the fact that living in a house for that number isn't sustainable, eight of the children are HIV positive and there are risks of cross-infection in such crowded conditions."

The plan is to complete the implementation of a medical and dietary programme for the children by September, using money raised in Maintain Hope's most recent fundraiser. "We're happy to pay the rent on the house where they are for the moment, but I'd hope that we'll buy the plot of land in this calendar year, and we'll build a new home next year."

Looking back on the decade of Maintain Hope, Gerry has seen changes, in particular how the locals view the Irish volunteers and their operation. "When we came first, they probably figured we were typically going to pose for a few photographs with shovels in our hands, and then go back home. But when they saw us get off the bus and start mixing cement, move blocks and cut timber, that was different. When we came back a second time, the relationship changed. Even from a security point of view they knew that we weren't tourists, that we didn't have a pot of money."

Gradually, local people came looking for work. Many were taken on, after a probationary period to see if they'd work out. "We had to do it that way. We were spending other people's money, we weren't employing people for the sake of it. We had to get the work done, and they had to realise that we meant business." As each annual expedition came back, the same people were re-employed, particularly tradespeople who in turn brought in trusted co-workers. A mutual respect was built up, both with the local people and with the local authority and politicians, who also had to be kept onside.

"Eventually we established a network of people to whom I could make a phone call and say we were coming in six weeks and we needed this and that. Now, if you go to any shop or business and mention Maintain Hope, they all know what you're talking about. We have become part of the scene there. Also, at the end of the week our volunteers will often go out for a meal and a sing-song and they appreciate that business too."

Members of the local police are hired as security, and they travel on the Maintain Hope bus. "I have been to the policemen's homes, had tea with their families. I suppose I have been invited into a hidden Kenya which I otherwise wouldn't have seen." All that said, the volunteers have to be careful. There's a lot of poverty, which can lead to opportunistic crime. "It's not in my nature to raise barriers, but you develop an antenna about an approach, to try and sort out what is friendship or an agenda. We tell our volunteers, don't make any commitment to people without checking with us first."

Shelter Childrens Home.

Much had to be learned in a very short time. About the local situation, about the intricacies and protocols of dealing with officials and politicians, about project management. Fortunately, Gerry had a grounding in basic building courtesy of his brother Tom's fascination with DIY. "I know what an RSJ is, I'm spatially aware and I can look at a site and visualise a building going up on it. With practice, it's extraordinary the skills you can pick up."

Taking 46 volunteers from Dublin Airport to Kenya and safely back to Dublin also takes a lot of skill. Gerry is full of praise for Maintain Hope's other founding director, Sue Rhein, for this side of things. "When it comes to the pastoral care of the volunteers, the briefings on medicine, dealing with the inevitable downs that people suffer, she was absolutely outstanding, fantastic." Sue has now stepped down from directorship, but is still fully supportive of the project.

The process has changed Gerry himself, he'll very quickly acknowledge. "It has given me a kind of peace," he says after a little thought. "Which is strange, because in the past I would have been very agitated about the state of the world, people's rights, inequality. It has really convinced me about the value of community, about what people can do if they all work together. You don't have to change the big picture, if somebody asks you for help at a really simple level, you can say yes or no. And that's all we're doing. At a strategic level we don't have a big plan to change Africa or Kenya. It's a community that asked us for help, and we said yes."

Desks donated by Maintain Hope supporters.

From the local level in Ireland it has made him value 'ordinary' people enormously, brought overseas for the project and 'squeezed' outside their comfort zone. "You very quickly see what they are made of. And for themselves, when you pass them on the street in Kilcullen, I suppose in their own quiet reflection they realise what they have achieved." In their interactions with each other, lifting colleagues up when they're down, understanding each other, it tears down barriers. "I found myself talking about depression, which I suffer from occasionally, with people who also do but never had anyone to talk with about it before."

Overall, Gerry says it has been a 'hugely enriching' experience at a people level, making more sense of life, and it has been a 'fantastic adventure'. "I have seen things, I have heard things, and I have experienced things that I could only have imagined before. But it's the working with children that's the most fantastic job that anyone can have." Whether they are in Kenya or Kilcullen, children sitting at their desks are the same the world over, be believes. "They have the same devilment, the same fears and stresses, and under different circumstances they do different things, but they are really all the same."

Looking back, he says it was being 'offended' that set him off on that journey of ten years. He was offended at what he saw in the children's orphanage. Just as he is offended today that four children playing on a beach in Gaza can be killed in an instant, for whatever reason. "What I saw offended me, and what I did was my response as a human being. I think in the bigger picture, it's only when enough people say 'enough' that anything will change."

Which sets his thoughts back to that bigger picture, the one that used to cause him so much angst as a much younger man concerned at global inequality. "Of course, that involves you and me, and everybody else, giving up stuff. The cake doesn't get any bigger, so for this bigger offence to be addressed, we have to do with less than we have. And I think that will take an awful lot of persuading."

Family support has been unstinting, and the reason Gerry has been able to carry on working on the small picture that has shown such tangible results. "Julie has never said no, even though she worries sometimes. And our three girls have been out in Shelter as volunteers. But sometimes, when I'm out there on my own making arrangements, I lie there at night, lonely for home, and the electricity has gone off for the tenth time, and I wonder what am I doing there? I say, this is it now, when I finish this ..."

But the call back has always been there, because there has always been something else which has to be done. And there are lots of people who want to go out with him, to go back. "I suppose the enthusiasm is there, and it's kind of hard to give up. So I'll certainly be in it for another year. Afterwards? Whether it's big or small, I'll always be involved with Africa."

Maybe he really just wants to go back for that long-delayed cold beer.