Roscommon man fundraising ahead of seventh and final Kenyan charity trip

A Croghan man plans to return to Kenya next January, continuing his good work with the Ray of Sunshine Foundation.

It will be Alo O’Dowd’s seventh time returning to Mombasa and its local villages, where a school he helped build for blind children in 2012 will be refurbished.

Fittingly, once the refurbishment of the school he helped build over a decade ago is complete, Alo will have completed his final trip with the charity.

“I’m 68 now, so I’m more or less going to stand back now and let the young crowd go. This is going to be the last trip. I’ve gone seven times,” he told the Roscommon Herald.

He remarked that it was a bonus to finish on a project so important to the most vulnerable.

“Some of these kids are totally blind and some of them are visually impaired with very poor eyesight. They were absolutely abandoned on the street. Their parents possibly didn’t have the money and they were just homeless kids.” 

The ten days of work Alo will complete in January will be under slightly different weather conditions than those he will leave at home in Croghan.

“You never see rain, it’s 36, 38 degrees all the time,” he explained, which becomes an even bigger factor in a working day that begins at 4.30 a.m..

“We get up at half four in the morning and we’re down at reception at five and you have a cup of tea or a bit of toast. You’re on the bus in at half five and then you’re out at work roughly around just six o’clock. It’s like turning on a switch out there, the darkness just disappears and it’s bright.”

A total of 50 volunteers will be travelling to Kenya with an efficient “poetry in motion” system.

Volunteers also stock up with clothes, toys and sweets for the children on each trip. The Ray of Sunshine charity has also provided accommodation, a small hospital and other meal and education programmes for communities.

Ahead of his final trip to Kenya, Alo is fundraising with a raffle this Christmas and a St. Stephen’s Day walk in Croghan.

He is grateful for the huge support he has received through the years and hopes that support will continue for the next trip, which will make a huge difference to the lives of vulnerable and needy children.