Peace and Justice
The Peace and Justice Group aims to raise awareness of injustice which impacts on the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves. The Group consists of 5th and 6th Year Students who prepare and present a different campaign each year. In the past they have welcomed visitors to Drimnagh Castle from Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya and Nicaragua. The Group has also hosted a national Peace and Justice Celebration with students attending from schools throughout Ireland.
Communicating the message of Peace and Justice with those who govern society is part of the Group’s mission. With this in mind, Drimnagh Castle Peace & Justice Group has welcomed a number of Irish Government Ministers and Dignitaries including Education, Environment and Overseas Development and the Kenyan Ambassador. A key part of the Group’s success has been the energy, enthusiasm and commitment to giving a voice to those who are marginalised or ignored. The students draw on their own skills and ideas while receiving training and support from Trócaire Education Officer Aoife Rush.
This year the Group, together with Trócaire, has focused on the harsh reality of poverty in Zimbabwe and Rwanda. While Ireland and the Northern Hemisphere are in the grip of a tough recession, families in Africa face even greater hardship due to a difficult situation intensified by the economic failure of the part of the ‘Developed’ Countries.
The experience of Poverty is more easily seen through the lives of individual people. It is for this reason that the Group presented a case study on the life of Domitille, a 6 year old Rwandan girl.
Domitille’s family survives on just €1 a day. Her parents, Triphone and Frodouald eat just once so their 8 children will have two ‘meals’. Domitille’s favourite meal is rice and beans but she rarely gets that. Instead, the common dish is cassava, a root vegetable similar to potato. Domitille begins and ends her day by helping her sister, Violette, carry heavy water drums from the well a few kilometres distant. The family share their living space with a neighbour’s cow. This helps them raise money from the charge for sheltering the cow. It is this money which feeds the family.
Trócaire assists families like Domitille’s all over the world. This assistance provides education, health care, food and shelter for the world’s poorest people. Your support for Our Campaign to tackle Global Poverty is making a real difference in the lives of children like Domitille.