|
News story
 Two DC volunteers, Anne ODriscoll and Mairead Burke, are travelling to the Ukraine in June 2008 to work on a street project with homeless children. Anne hails from Donegal while Mairead is from Claremorris, and both women have already had experience working with children within the child and family service of the Daughters of Charity here in Ireland.
They say that they expect their Ukraine experience to be "a real eye-opener to the harshness of this world that so many of us choose to ignore".
When they became interested in volunteering to work on this project, they met up with Denise, another young volunteer who had already gone to the Ukraine and had witnessed the sad plight of these children. This meeting with Denise not only gave them more practical information about the project but also filled them with a new enthusiasm for this very exciting venture.
Working in this completely new and different culture will naturally have its challenges and its ups and downs, Anne and Mairead said, but volunteering is a great outlet for us, not only because it will help those in need a little, but also because it will expand our skills as social care workers.
When Denise Kelly came back from her visit there, she gave us the food for thought we needed. The pictures of the kids and where they sleep at night in such freezing temperatures made us realise how good we have it here. While most of us would not give a second thought to where our next meal will come from or where we will sleep tonight, for these children it is a constant uphill battle to get the very basics in life. We can hardly imagine what that must be like. We hope this adventure will broaden our minds and give us insight into a way of life which is so unfamiliar to us.
|
