Funding agreed for Nsobe Community School

Nsobe village is in a very remote, rural part of the Copperbelt Province in Zambia. In 2009, as there were no local educational facilities, an inspiring woman established a school in her back garden. The school has grown and has become Nsobe Community School which now caters for 450 children. Classrooms, teachers’ accommodation, a dining hall, and assembly hall have been built. Funding has been obtained from several sources including the Beit Trust and Cuala GAA.

An electricity connection is required and CPS has agreed to fund the internal wiring as part of a rural electrification scheme.

Zamcycle 23

Dear Supporter,

I'll be cycling 200km again this year to fundraise for a number of projects in Zambia. This fundraising cycle, now in its 21st year, has managed to raise approximately 500,000 euro to help educate some of Zambia's poorest children as well as supporting small farming and other income-generating projects for families. Since I last cycled, the fundraising effort has now become an officially registered charity called CPS Trust Ireland (more info available at www.cpstrustireland.ie).

This year's route starts and finishes in Killorglin (as usual), taking in the Dingle Peninsula along the way. All donations appreciated, big or small!

Yours sincerely,

Ed Prendiville

CPS Trust Ireland Donation to EQUALS Initiative

The WHO estimates that at least 50% of medical equipment in developing countries is broken or out of use.

In response to this, in April 2022 CPS donated €10,000 to the EQUALS Initiative to facilitate the shipment of a 40-foot container of vital medical equipment to Zambia for distribution to many hospitals and health centres.

The Co-Chairs of the EQUALS Initiative, Professor Frank Murray, former President of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, and Professor David Weakliam, National Lead of the HSE Global Health Programme, acknowledged the donation, stating that the equipment would improve the quality of the Zambian health service, enhance care and save lives.

The EQUALS Initiative is a joint collaboration between the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and the HSE. Established in 2013, it sources and donates reusable medical equipment from Irish hospitals to hospitals in Zambia, in response to local requests and need. Examples of equipment donated include basic ultrasound machines, beds and even mattresses.

‘Go Ye Afar’ Book Launch

In her memoir Go Ye Afar, Sr Dr Eileen Keane takes us on a journey of her work as a doctor and as a Missionary Sister of the Holy Rosary in Africa. Leaving Ireland on a cargo ship in 1961, with £5 in her pocket, she describes her experiences, both good and bad, over the following forty-five years working in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia. Full of grit and dogged determination, and despite the danger, she provided care to all patients during the Biafran Civil War in Nigeria in 1970 and she came face to face with the apartheid regime in South Africa while undergoing further training there in the late 1970s. Graphically, she outlines the start of the AIDS epidemic in Zambia in the mid-1980s and how the first cases of AIDS were diagnosed. Ultimately, due to the lack of care for patients dying from AIDS, she recounts the story of how she doggedly initiated palliative care in Zambia despite opposition and her establishment of one of the first ecumenical hospices in Africa.

Copies are available for €20 plus postage by contacting info@cpstrustireland.ie

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CPS Trust Ireland hosted the launch of Sr Dr Eileen Keane's book GO YE AFAR

Date: Saturday 30 October 2021

Time: 2.00 pm

Venue: Arrupe Room, Irish Jesuit Provincialate, Milltown Park, Milltown Road, Dublin D06 W9Y7

Speakers

Master of Ceremonies - Dr Ed Prendiville

Book Editor - Professor John Sheehan

Book Launch - Professor Frank Murray

Author's Reflections - Sr Dr Eileen Keane

CPS Trust - Brian Conroy

Closing Remarks - Dr Ed Prendiville

Zamcycle 20

Dear Supporter,

The weather is improving and the sun, occasionally, shining and it is time to get back out on the bike. On Sunday 5th June 2022 I am planning a 200K cycle over the Cork and Kerry mountains and I am again looking for your support for aid projects in Zambia. Last year we raised €46,000 thanks to tremendous support from many of you.

This is the 20th year of the cycle and over the past 19 years we have raised €642,762. When I started this cycle in 2003 it was to raise money for 2 schools, CINDI in Ndola and Kondwe in Lusaka and a hospice, Cicetekelo, in Ndola. At the time Zambia was in the middle of a very severe AIDS epidemic. The schools were started to help children orphaned by AIDS through education and to support the extended families that looked after the children through nutritional and self help projects. Thankfully, through the arrival of retroviral medications, AIDS is not as severe an epidemic as it was. However, poverty remains a severe problem in Zambia and education is seen as the main way out of it. I am glad to be able to say that both schools are doing well and have expanded from primary to both primary and secondary education and at this stage are supporting a small number of young adults in third level education. There is also a big focus in getting the young people enrolled in training programs after leaving school with the hope of developing a trade that will support them.

Cicetekelo, was a hospice opened for patients dying of AIDS and did absolutely amazing work. Due to lack of funding the inpatient facility has closed. However, it continues to do community work as well as support an orphanage and sheltered accommodation for older people without support in Ndola.

The main focus of my cycle is to support these 3 projects. However, over the past 18 months, 2 friends, Brian Conroy and John Sheehan, who worked with me in Zambia in 1982 to 1984, and I have set up a charitable trust, CPS Trust Ireland, with the hope of expanding the support we can give. We have given financial support to a rural School, Nsobe, which has 400 pupils in primary and secondary level, and has opened accommodation for vulnerable girls. We are also supporting the building of a new school in Mazabouka in the Southern Province. This year we are supporting transport of medical equipment that is no longer needed by the HSE to hospitals in Zambia.

If you have supported us in the past I thank you most sincerely and if you can support us this year I would be most grateful. We have few overheads and the money we raise goes directly to the projects in Zambia.

This year on Sunday, 5th June, our route takes us from Killorglin cross country to Bantry then over a few hills, Caha Pass, Molls Gap and Ballagh Beama, and through Glencar back to Killorglin. Hopefully all in sunshine and little wind. A distance of about 200 Km. This year I get the free travel pass but isn't the bicycle the same thing.

Yours sincerely,

Ed Prendiville