Galway woman’s charity supports 20,000 people

Date Published: 06-Dec-2012

BY DENISE MCNAMARA

At a time of the year when we are bombarded with requests for giving to those less fortunate, one Galway charity perhaps stands out from the crowd.

This Christmas you may notice volunteers from Foundation Nepal at the Christmas Market selling ethical gifts such as funding for a literacy programme or there may be a choral singer or two out jangling a bucket.

Former accountant Nicky Deasy puts her money where her mouth is by almost single-handedly running the charity which has so far had staggering results since its inception in 2006.

Foundation Nepal is dedicated to giving local communities the tools to help themselves. Nepal may not get the same attention as some African countries, yet it ranks 193rd out of 210 countries for national income per capita.

In the poorest parts of the country which has been destroyed by civil war, 65% of children suffer from malnutrition, 95% of families have food shortages, and almost no adult women are literate.

Having decided to take a year out of her career as a director in Ernst and Young in their corporate finance division, she went to Nepal to teach English as a volunteer.

Children were subsisting in horrendous orphanages even though their families had paid for them to have a better life.

So she decided to get stuck in herself. Mainly through her old corporate clients, she managed to raise €100,000.

The charity aims to bring about lasting change by targeting its work in a handful of areas. It concentrates on food production and nutrition, helps women earn money which empowers them and their community, gives support to essential social services such as primary healthcare, maternity healthcare and primary education and aims to empower marginalised and disadvantaged groups by mobilising them to claim their rights.

“We’re supporting 20,000 people per year in healthcare,” says Nicky.

The results have so impressed the Government here that they have approved the charity for a three-year aid programme. That is quite an achievement when you consider that 80% of funding for small overseas charities has been cut in the downturn.

Foundation Nepal has launched a great range of Christmas gifts. For €10 you can send three children to school with copies and pens, you can provide one woman with an ante-natal check-up, a supervised home delivery of the baby and a post-natal check-up. A €20 gift will provide six people with a health check-up and medication.

A single mum of three-year-old Donagh, Nicky has now taken on two staff in Ireland to help run the charity and there are currently 16 workers on the ground in Nepal.

For further details log onto www.foundation-nepal.org.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.