Kerry Group gives €1.25 million to Zambian project

The story below appears in today's Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane
The next time I see a Kerry Co-op truck on the roads of Kerry, Cork or Limerick, my mind will race back to one of the most extraordinary weeks of my life.

Beginning in 2011 the Kerry Group is giving Concern Worldwide €1.25 million over five years for an agricultural project in Zambia.

The programme is called RAIN, Realigning Agriculture to Improve Nutrition. And that’s exactly what the Kerry Group are supporting Concern to do.

Although I happen to be working in the press office of Concern in Dublin since 2005 this was my first time to see firsthand what the aid agency is doing on the ground. And I can assure you it is really amazing work.

Since returning from Zambia, every time I wash my teeth and watch the water coming out of the tap, into the hand basin and on into the drain I keep thinking of Monica Malundu.

I met Monica in Mumbwa, which is between the Zambian capital, Lusaka and Mongu in the west. When I worked at The Kerryman I did a series on villages in Kerry and would regularly ask people what their hopes and wishes were. The answers were always interesting. But when I ask Monica what she would like most of all she immediately said ‘water’. Monica walks 12 kilometres every day to get water for her family.

The Concern project is helping villagers grow crops that are nutrient rich and they are trying to teach the people the importance of a varied diet.

Many people told me that before the RAIN project was introduced in their village far more people were hungry. One woman told me that before RAIN she had to walk 20 kilometres to buy vegetables and now “we have them all here”, she smiles.

Concern has a staff of 50 in Zambia, including Liam Kavanagh from Dublin, who works in Mongu and English woman Danny Harvey, who is the country director and is based in Lusaka.

Along with the support that the Kerry Group gives Concern in Zambia, Accenture and Irish Aid also support the work.

Ireland has an embassy in Lusaka and on my short visit to the country I was invited to the embassy where the ambassador Finbar O’Brien welcomed me with open arms. The Irish Aid programme in Zambia is overseen by Patrick McManus from Derry, who is head of development at the embassy. Patrick travelled to Mongu with me and proved invaluable in introducing me to the work that Concern is doing.

It really has been a life-changing experience and I have been flabbergasted by the work Concern is doing in the country.

The villages where Concern is working are often 30 kilometres from a main road and getting to them was done in fear and trepidation. How the driver managed the dirt tracks was beyond me. How could I ever again complain about a Kerry pothole?

For me it was one of those occasions when I was so proud of being Irish, so proud of my links with Kerry. Since my return it has really dawned on me of the amazing work that Ireland is doing around the world.

A work colleague quipped that she hopes my visit will put a stop to all that "cynical stuff you write".

I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of the Irish.