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Plight of war babies sparks Sarah’s major career change
A Moycullen native, who formerly served as President Michael D Higgins’ Communications Manager, has spoken about visiting war-torn South Sudan in her new role with a top Irish charity.
Sarah Martin has been working in Communications for 15 years and has taken up a post with Concern Worldwide, Ireland’s largest humanitarian aid agency.
The daughter of Michael and Helen Hegarty from Clooniffe, Sarah previously worked at RTE before taking up a post as Communications Manager at Aras An Uachtaráin and it was there, where Sarah’s interest in humanitarian issues sparked.
People enter the Protection of Civilians (POC) site with whatever possessions they can carry in Bentiu, South Sudan.
“In November 2014, I travelled on a three week trip to Africa with President Higgins and we visited Ethiopia, Malawi and South Africa and it was a real St Paul on the Road to Damascus moment for me,” she said.
“We went to a refugee camp in Ethiopia for South Sudanese refugees and visited a number of Concern programmes and I was overwhelmed by their remarkable work in terms of nutrition. I watched dozens of little babies, who were so malnourished, get weighed and it made me really want to help and work in the humanitarian sector and I was delighted when a role came up with Concern.”
Sarah joined Concern last October as Communications Director and ironically, one of her first assignments was to visit the agency’s programmes in South Sudan.
“I was very eager to see the work of Concern in South Sudan particularly as the UN announced that over 40,000 people are at risk of famine. I spent most of my time up in Bentiu, which is north of the country. We are working in camps based in a UN compound and protected by United Nations peacekeepers, called a Protection of Civilians site (PoC).
“It was originally built for 50,000 people now it’s overflowing and there is about 120,000 living in the camp. It is extremely shocking and sad to hear stories from people who saw family members killed in front of them. As they walked to the civilian camps, they literally saw bodies littering the road side. What people have been through in terms of trauma has been incredible,” she said.
South Sudan is the youngest country in the world having gained independence in 2011 after a 20-year-long civil war that claimed the lives of thousands.
“South Sudan has been embroiled in its own civil war for the last two years, some people are calling in the forgotten crisis because it isn’t getting that much media attention,” she explained.
Sarah revealed the African country, which has a population of 12m and is as big as France, has virtually no infrastructure.
“In the entire country there is only about 100kms of tarmac roads. Vehicles have to resort to driving in long, dusty dirt tracks, which can make delivering aid really difficult.”
Sarah also explained how South Sudan is seriously affected by El Nino, a disrupted weather pattern that is causing weather chaos such as droughts and floods to many parts of the world, including Ireland.
“As we saw over the winter, Galway and the West were impacted by storms which caused flooding. South Sudan is on the other end of the scale and is suffering from drought so there is a major food security crisis there currently. When you think of the people that were evacuated from their homes in Galway and then there are over two million who had to flee their homes in South Sudan, half the population of Ireland, it’s a shocking contrast,” she said.
As a result of the conflict, and, more recently food insecurity, thousands of people, arrive at Bentiu camp every month for help. Many of the women and children are malnourished and are admitted to Concern’s nutrition centres for treatment.
“We focus on babies and mothers who are pregnant or breastfeeding. When they come in with their infants we measure their upper arm. If it measures less than 11.5 cm then we know then they are malnourished. You can see a marked difference from the children that are receiving nutritional treatment compared to the children, who are just arriving.
“I was lucky to talk to a lot of the mothers and I was chatting to a mum named Maria, she came to the camp when her baby was just two months old. He was brought to the nutrition camps straight away and Concern identified immediately that he had malaria. He was taken to hospital and was able to feed from the high nutrition packs Concern provides while receiving treatment,” she said.
According to Sarah, Concern is solely responsible for all the shelters in the camps in Bentiu, but due to increased numbers arriving, camps are becoming over-crowded.
“There has been a huge influx of people coming into the camp because of food insecurity and they are staying with relatives so the over-crowding is becoming a problem. The one room in a shelter can see up to six people living there at one time. Concern is very anxious to build more of these shelters. Thanks to donations, Concern is able to facilitate sanitation and water and has also installed showers and toilets. We have installed 80 rubbish bins around the camp and providing supplies so people can keep the camps clean and this is working very well.”
Poignantly, Sarah recalls a conversation she had with a group of women, who, when asked did they have dreams, replied: ‘We have no dreams.’
“There is no such thing as dreams for them and their children. That’s what they told me. They just pray to God their children won’t die. It’s purely about survival. Thankfully in terms of the conflict there has been a peace agreement between the president and his former vice president but even if peace comes, the food insecurity situation is still drastic,” she said.
“I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old and they are privileged just by virtue of where they are born. There is so much inequality in the world but through the generosity of donations, Concern is helping to combat that. We are forever thankful to the Irish public for helping us combat food insecurity in vulnerable countries like South Sudan,” Sarah added.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
