From Ireland, with love

Distance of thousands of kilometers was bridged last weekend when students of a county school in Midleton organised a run to raise money for street children of Kolkata.

Updated on: Aug 12, 2008, 24:00:31 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Midleton (Ireland)

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Distance of thousands of kilometers was bridged last weekend when students of a county school in Midleton organised a run to raise money for street children of Kolkata.

“It is our friendly gesture for children living in extreme poverty on the streets of Kolkata, unlike us, who enjoy all luxuries of life,” said John O’tballor, a student who participated in the 25-kilometre run from Midleton to Youghal in southern Ireland.

Seeking small contribution from shopkeepers to residents to provide better life to some of the street children in Kolkata, O'tballor said about 9,000 Euros raised through the run would be given to the NGOs when they visit Kolkata early next year.

The money raised may not make a huge difference to the lives of over 2 lakh street children in Kolkata but the students term their effort as a ‘gesture of friendship’.

The first such run organised for street children in India in Ireland was brainchild of Maura Smyth, O’tballor’s teacher, who visited West Bengal in 2004 and was left numb seeing the condition of children on the streets of Kolkata. “It was then I realised that there are two worlds, one for rich and another for poor. Here we take everything for granted. But, in India, one has to fight for survival always,” she said.

After her return to Midleton, the town known for producing best Irish Whiskey Jameson, she gave insight to her students about the ‘fight for survival’ that Indian children face every day and the world of extreme poverty.

Her stories inspired O’tballor and his five friends to take up a project for welfare of street children. “They (the students) came up to me and asked me what they can do for these children. After much discussion we decided to raise money for them and visit them,” she said.

Six students along with Smyth and another teacher would be visiting Kolkata and a school run by Christian Brothers for poor children in Asansol to experience the life of Indian children.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Get the latest headlines from US news and global updates from Pakistan, Nepal, UK, Bangladesh, Russia and US Iran war Live, get all the latest headlines in one place on Hindustan Times.