WATCH: Mullingar charity's moving video shows how local donations are spent in Africa
A Mullingar charity that has improved the lives of some of the most vulnerable inhabitants of an east African village has produced a heart-warming video that shows how local donations are being used.
Tanzanian Heavenly Homes was founded by Mullingar's John McCauley after a trip to Tanzania in 2011 to photograph some of the country's wildlife. On the way back to the airport at the end of his holiday, he noticed a run-down orphanage in the village of Mto Wa Mbu.
“I asked the driver to stop because I wanted to go in to the orphanage. I went in very happy but came out very sad. My whole life changed because of what I saw that day.”
Once a year, John and a team of volunteers head to Tanzania and using money donated by people from Westmeath and around Ireland complete a project.
After building a school and significantly improving the living conditions and prospects of the children in the orphanage, Tanzanian Heavenly Homes looked at how it could help some of the older local people.
They have done so by building six housing units, which are now home to around 10 people. The residents, who before this struggled to eke out an existence, receive three meals a day and live out their final years in relative comfort. Much of the food that's used to feed them is grown on a plot of land purchased by Heavenly Homes last year.
In the video produced by Keri Shaughnessy using footage she recorded earlier this year, John and his fellow volunteers visit some of the people that the charity supports, including a woman called Maria who is bringing up her two grandsons in an abandoned shack on the outskirts of the village.
In one of the most moving passages in the video, volunteers present Maria with a new bed to replace the piece of foam she and her grandchildren slept on.
Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner, John says that the aim of the video is “to show where people's money goes”.
“It is not about us at all. I want to show people how we are spending the money they donated. If they want to ask us questions, they are free to do so. Being a non-profit organisation, none of us get paid and we all pay our own travel expenses.
“People are so generous. It means a lot to me that they hand me money and that they trust us to do. We can then go and help people on their behalf; we could buy Maria a bed and some food for her family.”
Heavenly Homes will be holding a fundraising photography exhibition in Harbour Place Shopping Centre between December 21 and 24.
“We will be sitting and chatting to people. If they want they can stop, take a couple of minutes and see the work we doing in Tanzania,” he said.