The Holiday That Turned Into a Vocation
| Published: 1st May 2008 14:08 |
The holiday that turned into a vocation
Two retired Northern Irish entrepreneurs went on holiday two years ago
to The Gambia and not only changed their lives but the lives of hundreds of
local people.
What was supposed to be relaxing beach holiday, lazing about in the
African sun turned into a huge charitable endeavour that has ended up
not only changing the lives of the people of a small, impoverished village
but also that of entrepreneurs Brian Harrold and his partner, Pamela Morgan.
Fiftysomethings, Harrold and Morgan (former N. Ireland Businesswoman of the
Year) have both spent their careers building up successful businesses which
they have recently sold and have spent the last five years enjoying the fruits
of their labours leading enviable lives, golfing and holidaying around the world,
dividing their time between Belfast, Dublin and Marbella.
Two year ago they discovered The Gambia and in particular the village of Bafaluto,
where the only supply of drinking water was from a shallow well, often contaminated,
leading to a relentless cycle of ill health & disease. A story repeated throughout
West Africa, where many villages are without clean water and every day is a
struggle to stay alive and keep disease at bay.
The opportunity for these communities to create self-supporting economic
infrastructures is virtually non-existent. As a result, each year, thousands of
West Africans go to Europe as both legal and illegal immigrants, in some cases
with whole villages raising funds to send one or two young men to Europe in
order to earn money to send back home to their extended families and
communities. Tragically, some of these illegal immigrants do not even make it
alive, as the journey is often perilous and every year the bodies of many
young African men are washed up on Spanish beaches.
Brian and Pamela have spoken to many of these West African men who travel
to Spain for work and have found that without exception, they would all
prefer to be back home if the opportunities existed there for them to provide
for their families and get their children educated.
While in The Gambia they realised that they wanted to help but wanted to
make sure their contribution looked at a much "bigger picture" than just giving
funds to pay for clean water supplies and fresh food. They felt strongly that
they wanted to help this community make sustainable changes.
"The EU and the USA are spending so much money devising and poorly implementing schemes to keep people out, denying them any access to our wasteful abundance rather than helping them build sustainable economic infrastructures in their own countries", says Harrold.
Using £100,000 of their own money
they have set up PING Charity
and put their entrepreneurial
expertise and experience to
help the people of Bafaluto to
become economically self-sufficient
in order to create long-term opportunities
for the prosperity of the area.
As a result, these two "holiday makers" have transformed an entire village of six
hundred people by stimulating business ventures to allow the area to prosper and
their good work to grow.
Pamela and Brian, who have just started working in a second village believe that the
continued investment of effort, funds and entrepreneurial expertise at a local level,
will provide opportunities for lasting economic growth, better health and better
education for the children in the region.
"We are well organised to replicate the Bafaluto model, funds are our only limitation. We have identified and costed similar jobs in another nine villages and need donations totally £1 million to continue and replicate this work", explains Morgan. Every penny goes directly to the charity, there are no admin costs and all funds donated are put to work immediately - it's the best £100,000 we've ever spent."
"I believe that for relatively small
money we are making a huge
long-term difference to people's lives
in "our" village of Bafaluto and can
continue to do so if we can raise
the necessary funds. We hope
we've helped to improve their lot
and reduce the chances of some
of their young men being washed up
on the southern beaches of Spain
in an illegal attempt to make it to Europe",
comments Harrold.
Their charity is http://www.pingcharity.co.uk
For further information contact: pingcharity@yahoo.co.uk or telephone: 00353862556107
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