GOAL also implements HIV/AIDS programmes in Blantyre and Balaka districts to support, treat and care for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. In order to reduce the spread of HIV in our target communities, GOAL has a HIV/AIDS prevention, positive living and empowerment programme.

Average school classes can be as big as 100, or more, and pupils and many schools lack even desks and blackboards. Worse still, the absence of adequate toilet facilities and clean drinking water poses a real danger to the health of the pupils. GOAL is constructing over 100 houses for orphaned children and feeding over 1,000 orphans while carrying out a large scale school building and rehabilitation programme in the Nsanje district where the charity hopes to build and rehabilitate up to 80 schools. Colaiste Lurgan in Inverin in Galway have funded two of these schools. Each school has the capacity to educate 800 children.

Though I saw much tragedy, sadness and suffering on my trip to Malawi, I also met some truly beautiful people – all of them friendly and welcoming. I came away feeling richly blessed to have met them and as though I was the one being helped, not the other way round.

By an accident of birth I am Irish, but I could have just as easily been Malawian. My trip made me realise the numerous similarities there are between us all. We breathe the same air. We walk the same way. Our spirits need love and acceptance. Our bodies need food, water and sleep. We share the same humanity. We are really not so different.

My lasting impression of Malawi was not the scale of its poverty, but the spirit of its people. War, hunger and physical suffering have not stolen their hope. They remain joyful when they have every reason to be depressed. You can hear hope in their songs:

‘The Lord will bless someone today. It may be you. It may be me. It may be someone by your side.’

My thoughts often go back to the beautiful children I saw at the GOAL projects I visited, where people are being given life-saving techniques. It brings me great comfort to know that these children will have the opportunity to grow up, thanks to GOAL’s and other Irish NGO’s and Irish Missionaries efforts.