Irish Football Fans Build Zambian Orphanage

(first published in the August 2009 UCD match programme)

When Terry O’Sullivan met Cathal Chu, a Dundalk supporter who had recently travelled to Zambia, an alliance was formed which has had a big influence on the life-long Blues fan ever since.

Lusaka Orphanage

Chu had been to Zambia to meet a friend, and while there he became aware of an orphanage being built by an extraordinary woman named Eunice Bwalya and her husband, Stephen. Eunice, an orphan herself, and disabled since childhood after contracting malaria, founded the WONS orphanage, in the capital Lusaka, “a collective of people who get on with the challenge of surviving”, with the aim of housing and schooling 24 boys and girls “up to the college/university level, so that after that they can be independent and responsible for themselves, and be a blessing to the world.” WONS stands for Widows (and widowers), Orphans and vulnerable, Needy people, and the Sick (including HIV/AIDS cases), and the Bwalya’s sacrificed their own house to form the basis of the orphanage, with additional buildings to be added to house the 24 resident children, and cater for the up to 60 external children who attend daily.

Terry, and members of the Irish soccer supporters club representing the Blues, Dundalk, St. Pats and Shamrock Rovers, have formed the Wexford Zambia Outreach Group, initially to assist in the building and outfitting of the Bwalya orphanage, but it is hoped eventually to assist with more such projects in the area. The Group visited Lusaka last year and helped to erect a dormitory for the girls of the oprhanage, and 10 volunteers, including Terry, will be heading out to Zambia again on November 20th to assist with the construction of the boys dorm, and other important work, such as tiling and painting the buildings, fitting kitchens and so on.

Terry O'Sullivan and orphanage workers

The Group are very actively fundraising throughout the Wexford region, and soon hope to extend their activities to Waterford, with some Sunday bag-pack days at Tesco Ardkeen just part of the plans. The money raised, as well as purchasing building and medical supplies, toys and food for the orphanage, will also be used to employ local builders and craftspeople in the area, as they are conscious of not alienating the orphanage from the local people. Other members of the Outreach Group include Madeleine Nixon, a cook for the National Council for the Blind, who will be spending a month at the orphanage teaching home economics to the children, and Sinead Courtney, who works for Sam McCauley’s chemists in Enniscorthy, who has helped to organise fundraising, and has secured both donations and cost-priced medicines from her employers. More recently, overtures to the FAI have received a very favourable response, and Waterford United have also offered to assist with donations of sports apparel and equipment.

The Group recently put out a call for any old Ireland soccer shirts that people could spare to be donated, and after a heartening response over 100 green shirts are now being worn by the children in Lusaka. A further drive for more old shirts, and old footballs, will be undertaken in the near future, as part of an ongoing fundraising campaign in the Wexford and Waterford areas. Anyone who wishes to donate to this worthy cause can lodge money in The Orphanage Account at Permanent TSB Enniscorthy, account no 13821105, sort code 99-06-66.