Kinnegad couple in battle to help the poor of Lima

Kinnegad couple Luke Waldron and his wife Carmen have a hugely interesting story behind their meeting.Carmen is from Peru, and Luke, a native of Mayo. Parents of three now grown-up children, and grandparents as well, the couple live in Kinnegad, but return as often as they can to Carmen's native country, and the land where their own three children grew up.How Luke ended up in Peru was through religion. He went there in 1962 as a missionary priest - but his life ended up taking a different turn to what he had expected, and in 1971, he married Carmen, and stayed on living in Peru for the next twenty years, doing work with the poor in the shanty towns around Lima.Although back in Ireland almost twenty years, the couple's commitment to helping the poor of Lima is as strong as ever, and last Friday night at the Hilamar Hotel, they hosted a table quiz aimed at raising funds to help children in Lima.Quizmaster for the night was the couple's son Willie, while keeping score was their other son, Tony, who devised the questions for the quiz; and on duty on the door was daughter Cathy.Lima is among the poorest cities in the world, and with a population that continues to soar, the battle against poverty is an ongoing one, says Luke."Probably, there are parts of Africa that would have more destitution because of wars and strife, but there's been huge immigration from the centre and the highlands to the coastal cities of Peru, and they just can't absorb the people," he says.When he went to Peru in 1962, the population was 1.5m. It's now close to 9m."People go there thinking that they're going to a better life, but sociologists would say that since the advent of the transistor radio, you could have a peasant farmer in dire circumstances in the highlands, and he would hear about the possibilities of life in Lima, and then move down."Initially, Lima absorbed these people all quite well, but in latter years, because the coast of Peru, except where the rivers come down, doesn't get any rain, they settle in these sort of "no-man's lands", around the city."People use whatever building materials they can find, and they have to buy water, which is sold to them at inflated prices.The Waldrons fundraise for a charity which provides sort of "creches", to which poor children can go during the day, receive food and education; and to which, in the evening, children attending school can come in order to be able to study.Luke was delighted with the support from around Killucan and Kinnegad for the table quiz, and paid tribute to the many local firms, including businesses in Mullingar, which donated prizes for the night.