Thioncote Twagurumuhire, Water Field Officer for Trócaire partner UNICOOPAGI, and Marie Louise Umuhire, Trócaire Resource Right Project Officer,
working together at a community kitchen garden in Nyamagabe, Rwanda. Photo: Alan Whelan /Trócaire The Irish Catholic Spring Legacy 2021
A Last Act of Mercy
Covid-19 has made Trócaire’s work more difficult, but Irish donations have ensured they adapt and continue to do it, writes Jason Osborne
The pandemic didn’t come at a good time for anyone, but still less for Trócaire. An organisation that is built upon the goodwill of people, both donors and staff, the pandemic struck right as the exhortations to almsgiving were at their loudest: Lent 2020.
Despite this, their work has continued unabated. Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Head of Programme for Learning and Impact Eoin Wrenn said the “generosity” of the Irish public was essential in enabling them to continue carrying out their “multifaceted” work.
“There was a ‘philanthropic moment’ last year when people rallied behind the charities,” Mr Wrenn says.
“The legacy donations that we get really allow us to meet the needs of the poorest people in the countries where we work and just seeing, even in east Africa at the moment with increased drought, Covid cases on the rise again, ongoing conflict – there are actually 20 million more people living in poverty in 2020 than there were in the previous year of 2019 and I’d expect that to go up again.
“I saw a figure this morning, there’s 155 million people globally relying on humanitarian assistance at the moment. That’s a massive number,” he said.
With figures on the rise, Trócaire’s work is more important than ever. Mr Wrenn explains their approach to tackling the many issues people face, which is based upon a number of “strands”: humanitarian response, longer-term livelihoods work, women’s empowerment and human rights.
“In our humanitarian responses we supply the basic needs of people, so it could be the provision of emergency food aid, it might be the provision of clean and safe drinking water. For example, in Somalia, we do a lot of work with malnourished children and mothers. We’d have a school and therapeutic feeding programmes, and a lot of that,” Mr Wrenn says.
Humanitarian work
Much of this humanitarian work is funded by legacy donations Trócaire receives from the Irish public, coupled with general donations. These sources of income also fund the other prongs of their work.
“Our, what we call, longer-term development work, so when you’re not really in an immediate humanitarian situation but still working with people who are very vulnerable and very poor and marginalised,” is another important aspect of Trócaire’s work, according to Mr Wrenn.
This is also known as their “livelihoods work” as it’s oriented towards helping people establish themselves in their own communities and settings. Mr Wrenn says this might involve providing agricultural training, or supplies such as “drought-tolerant” seeds that will survive in climates that get erratic rainfall. As much of Trócaire’s work takes place in Africa, this is often much needed.
“And we do a lot of training like moving people away from chemical inputs, what we call ‘agro-ecology’. So, again, working with rural men and women, particularly from a farming perspective. That’d be one aspect,” Mr Wrenn says.
“Another big area that we have is the area that we call women’s empowerment. A lot of the context where we work, women really would be viewed as second-class citizens and girls wouldn’t have the same access to education that boys have, so we do a lot of work with women at a local level, looking at women’s role in the household, in the community, working with women to bring women together in self-help groups or women-only fora,” Mr Wrenn explains.
“There we would do, again, skills training, maybe vocational skills training so that women have an opportunity to earn a little bit of an income to have a little bit more say over how the income they earn is used.”
Human rights
The final key area Trócaire is focusing on in the midst of the pandemic, in an attempt to alleviate people’s long-term suffering, is human rights. Working in settings such as Central America, Zimbabwe and Palestine, Trócaire has encountered many instances of human rights abuses.
Asked what their strategy is behind the varied approach they take to their work, Mr Wrenn says it’s “intentional” as “people face a multitude of challenges in their own lives”.
Many of the 17 countries Trócaire are operating in see people grappling with a number of issues at once, and so an “integrated response” is called for if people are ever to attain a decent standard of life.
Of course, Covid-19 has complicated their work, with donations affected since the pandemic’s advent, but also in terms of their on the ground work.
“It’s been hugely challenging because, I suppose not only did Ireland go on lockdown but most of the countries where we work went into lockdowns as well,” Mr Wrenn says.
A lot of their work came to a “standstill” for a time, the lockdowns impacting their ability to work hand-in-hand with their partners in each country and visit the communities directly.
“Everything had to be reimagined. There was a huge, we use the term, ‘pivot’. There was a huge pivot in all of our programmes this time last year to say, ‘Ok, what does Covid now mean?’ But I must say, our teams and our partners really responded and again, using technology and being imaginative, the work continued.”
Health programme
Mr Wrenn tells of the health programme which Trócaire set up and runs in Somalia, which was adapted during the pandemic to include Covid isolation wards and a testing programme, but it has since developed to include a vaccination programme.
“Covid did drive a lot more people into poverty” and more, Mr Wrenn tells, continuing “from malaria cases that weren’t being treated and other sicknesses – we had a lot of reports of pregnant women dying in childbirth because they weren’t able to get to hospitals because transport had closed down. So obviously Covid itself was a major driver of poverty just by people getting sick, by people losing their jobs, but it had the knock-on effect then of people suffering from non-Covid related issues”.
Through it all, Irish donations have been a bulwark of aid, with Mr Wrenn saying legacy donations are more important than ever, “to allow organisations like Trócaire to journey with and meet the needs of the world’s poorest who are still living in the middle of this crisis,” and who are unlikely to emerge from it for another “12-18 months”, even as the rest of the world races ahead.