Fundraising in county Tipperary to help young girls in one of world's poorest countries

A fundraiser will be held in Clonmel next week to aid the education and health of young girls in one of the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped countries.
The Clonmel Rotary Club flag days will provide vital support for a Loreto Sisters project in the Rumbek region of South Sudan.
Proceeds from the flag days on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, September 7, 8 and 9, will go directly to the Loreto-Rumbek mission. Started in 2006, the mission’s core functions are to provide education, health care and well-being for young girls of school-going age.
In a country ravaged by conflict and famine, young uneducated girls as young as 14 are regularly forced into arranged marriages by their families in exchange for cattle.
Initially a primary, and now a secondary school, begun by the Loreto Sisters in Rumbek, it has ensured that girls are now able to continue their education, eventually move on to university and then return to their communities where they play a vital role in the education of the next generation.
Following a liaison with the Loreto School in Clonmel, the Rotary Club has supported the Rumbek project in the past and is delighted to be able to do so again.
Rotary Club president Fil Guida has described the Rumbek project as inspirational and has appealed to the people of Clonmel to be generous in their support for the flag days over three days next week.
“The people of Clonmel and surrounding areas have always been hugely supportive of our fundraising efforts for various causes and I ask them to be as generous again next week. The Loreto-Rumbek project centres on the education and health of young girls, a vital scheme in one of the world’s youngest nations where education is not a priority,” Mr Guida said.
Ensuring that schoolgirls are well fed is another priority for the Loreto project and up to 1,200 girls are fed daily while attending classes.
The three core programmes that Clonmel Rotary will support through next week’s flag days are a co-educational primary school; an all-girls secondary boarding school; and a woman and child-centric primary health care centre.
And while the parents of the children now attending school never had the same opportunities, they are committed to ensuring that their children have the chance to study and access health care that they were denied.
“Our project is called Famine Relief and Education in South Sudan and I know that the people of Clonmel will respond to our appeal in the way they always do,” said Rotary president, Fil Guida.
The flag day collections are at O’Connell Street, Clonmel Credit Union and the Post Office and possibly at other locations in the town as well.