Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
GOAL IS ONE of a few charities involved in delivering emergency relief to the Horn of Africa, where drought and famine are threatening millions of lives. CEO of the charity, John O’Shea, writes that the UN needs to stand up to the militants who are blocking aid going to those people trapped inside the country’s borders.
FOUR MILLION PEOPLE stranded in Somalia, suffering the worst effects of famine, are being denied the life-saving aid they so urgently require, on the diktat of terrorists and criminal gangs.
In its latest pronouncement, the Al-Qaeda linked group, Al Shabab, is reported by the BBC as denying that it intends allowing aid workers to intervene – which amounts to them passing a death sentence on untold numbers of their fellow citizens.
Why is the UN standing idly by and allowing this to happen? Why is the fate of millions of drought-stricken, malnourished people being decided by warlords?
Since when has the lawless state of a country been allowed stop the UN from going about its business?
The list of violent countries where the UN has intervened directly on behalf of a population is endless, yet it appears on this occasion millions are to be left to the ravages of hunger and thirst.
The UN moved swiftly in Haiti, for instance, to safeguard humanitarian workers against heavily-armed criminal gangs, after the earthquake of January, 2010. What is preventing it from doing the same thing in Somalia?
There was no talk of negotiating with or bribing the Haiti criminals to allow aid be delivered. Whether the gangsters liked it or not, armed UN peacekeepers were sent in to create and maintain safe corridors. However, bribery appears to be the only option that is being half-heartedly mooted for Somalia.
Why don’t the UN demand that the warmongers cease their violence, move into Somalia, and create safe corridors for aid organisations to mount a meaningful emergency relief operation in the country?
GOAL has been inundated with people ringing us to ask this precise question. They are watching and reading about the unfolding disaster, and are responding magnificently to appeals from aid agencies – but are then being told that the majority of famine sufferers cannot be reached because of violent criminality.
GOAL has been working in the Horn of Africa for over 30 years. Since January 2011, we have been tankering water to drought-affected communities in Ethiopia and delivering nutrition, health, seeds and fertiliser at 20 locations across six regions. During this time we have treated 33,500 children suffering from malnutrition and distributed 47 million litres of water to 500,000 beneficiaries.
Upwards of 2,000 Somali refugees are now streaming into southern and eastern parts of Ethiopia every day. Thus far, we have provided clean water to 140,000 people and over 90 metric tons of food aid to malnourished Somali refugee women and children in Kobe camp on the Somalia/Ethiopian border. Our organisation is also tending to large numbers of refugees in the Dadaab camps on the Kenya/Somalia border.
However, regardless of how much aid agencies manage to achieve outside Somalia’s borders, this is the smallest and least problematic part of the humanitarian tragedy that is unfolding. Aid must be got to the people inside Somalia.
Somalia has been ignored by the international community for decades, as its warlords and factions fought for overall dominance of the country, each brutally imposing themselves on the populations under their control. Without a central government since 1991, Somalia has been like an unwanted orphan to rest of the world.
The habit has been hard to break: and continues even through the present famine.
But break this habit the international community must. Unless it stops ignoring the starving people of Somalia, and moves to exert its authority over the groups currently holding sway in the country, millions of lives may be lost.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Sectarianism, bigotry, homophobia and a general us and them mentality still alive and well in ireland i see. Principal should be removed from his post if he can’t be a good human being how can he teach kids to be.
Well your equality poster is just laughable after that comment
Cormac – it is only correct that she should now be disciplined. It would serve the teaching profession well too. Your take on equality is just bizarre Cormac, she is an educator who has been found to have described a child as ‘abnormal’ on account of the fact she seems to think he is homosexual.
Explain yourself Cormac, enlighten us all with your intelligence and we may learn something?
You assume “he” fergal . I can clarify its a “she”
It would take to long to enlighten you Stephen . You might get back to me at about 4.30 today when you are fully awake
Cormac – is it acceptable for an educator to call a child “abnormal”? Is it acceptable for an educator to call a homosexual pupil abnormal?
Cormac shys away I see.
It’s not acceptable to call anybody abnormal but in this case he was not her student not a student of the school therefor not a pupil calling a person abnormal in any form is not acceptable but unfortunately still happens. I sat through 6 months of maternity appointments with a big sticker on my maternity file saying abnormal foetus, after there were concerns about my baby!,all he had was a cleft lip which has been fixed and he is perfect in every other way. As humans we should avoid using the word abnormal when referring to one and other. I can’t put into words how that word makes me feel.
Disturbing to find sectarianism as well as homophobia still alive and well. Principal sounds like a total snob to be honest.
I’m against people being overly politically correct….however, any person in a senior position in any organisation should be aware that the words they use can be upsetting to others. I find it incredible that with all the training out educators get, and hopefully having a small amount of common sense, that remarks like this would still be made. We are indeed a funny nation, on the one hand we vote in favour of equality for our gay brethren and yet people will jump to defend this school principal.
€3,000? Principal sounds like a bully. Can’t see him learning any lessons here.
He has a black mark on his book, for being bold and may not get another job as a result?
It was a woman
Did anyone actually read the article?
Yawn.. everyone is too sensitive these days
You’ll get compensation for almost anything these days.
You did read the part where she asked for no compensation
And still got it hence “you’ll get compo for anything these days”.
Joe – do you think it is acceptable for a teacher to describe a pupil as abnormal? Do You think it is acceptable to describe a homosexual as abnormal?
Female principal
The fact that she didn’t get her Irish language qualification in the time frame specified shows that he was right to say she tricked her way in to a contract. I’m not defending what he said about her son, but people are entitled to their beliefs. He didn’t call him any derogatory names that could be construed as homophobic. He voiced an opinion that gay people hear every day. I hope she didn’t use her son’s sexuality and the principal’s dinosaur attitude as an emotive defence against her own breach of trust on the Irish language issue.
That’s socialism for ya p
As a principal she should have been well aware of her right to get a permanent contract after four years. Anyone in a position of authority should be supportive of their staff, although I am aware this isn’t always the case.
Patrick from my reading of the article both persons involved are females, not males.
The teacher did not trick her way into a contract of indefinite duration. Any employer who does not know or understand employment law and the entitlements of workers is responsible for the worker obtaining a contract of indefinite duration in these circumstances. In the first instance this responsibility lay with the Principal (and then the Board of Management) who having failed to discharge it then blames the teacher. Risible.
I thought it said the Principal was male. Sorry.
No worries Patrick. The article is somewhat confusing but my other points stand!
Love the way this was spun by the media this Morning
Go on then, defend the bigot and explain why an educator labeling a child as “abnormal” is acceptable to you.
Person said that they did not make the comments
And a tribunal found that they were lying. But sure you know better because you read a short article on the Internet.
Plenty of people witnessed the comment, her denials afterwards make her unfit to be principal and a good Christian she must be?
While you are there ,Fin/Lin/Cormac – what do you make of the comments by the new master of the Rotunda that women carrying babies diagnosed with fatal foetal abnormalities should not have to travel to the UK for abortions ?
Never Abortion in this Country
Oh is Cormac Lindabar???
He is ..
It was just as bad in catholic schools. On P.E day we weren’t allowed wear premiership jerseys or else we’d have to sit in the classroom, teachers didn’t want “foreign games” in the school. A fair few kids in the class were often singled out because they had rips or tears in their uniforms and made a show of by the teachers. I remember one child being told he should be taken off his parents as they were raising an idiot, we’re talking primary so under 10 years of age. This was the nineties in Dublin by the way
Sounds inhumane Nigel.
Ever consider writing a script and having a film made of your schooldays.
A Greek tragedy along the lines of Angela’s Ashes.
Hollywood execs would be banging your door down to make it.
That wasn’t the point I was making. I was saying that type of bullying goes on everywhere. Then again I had it light compared to people who were “educated” by catholic priests who used schools as hunting grounds for little kids.
Check out the Muslim school in Clonskeagh and its dress policies. Its alive and well today too
The principal should be fired and all schools should be taken over by the state. The fact that the principal was making these remarks about what was a teenage boy at the time is quite simply beyond belief.
I wonder if the Teaching Council or the INTO has anything to say about this?
Political correctness gone wrong…..
Why is that Patrick. School principal, an educator, a teacher describes a young boy as abnormal because she thinks e is homosexual. How on earth is that acceptable in your world?
Which makes him “abnormal” the pink jacket or being gay??
Give the money to the homeless of Athlone.
I take it you will be making a €3,000 donation yourself too then.
I’m proud to say that this would never happen in a Catholic school.
The true religion.
http://www.tjos.ie/news/teacher-asked-homos-job-interview-awarded-compensation/
No, the Catholic Church schools would never discriminate.
You obviously didn’t go to a catholic school Oran.
Try moving from the Uk to an irish catholic school at 8 yrs old, Oran, you’ll see plenty of discrimination!!! I still shudder when I think of one particular
teacher back in the early 80′s.
Pink blazer?
What colour were the pants?
Risky move there if his pants and shoes didnt go exactly it would have been a disater
Wasn’t that the standard uniform for St. Endas?
I see I wasn’t the only one who assumed it was a ‘He’ until it said ‘She’, interesting that…
Seems to have been more about the means by which this teacher acquired a Contract of Indefinite Duration than about homophobia. People should be aware that today, principals have very little autonomy in selecting the staff for their schools – most have to be picked from the list provided by the supplementary panel. Might explain why it’s getting harder to recruit principals for schools.
Boy goes to C of I church in pink blazer, tells everyone he’s gay and then doesn’t like the negative attention he gets…..right….
You do have a natural talent for over simplifying everything, Tony.
I feel so lucky that we have an equality tribunal in this country. We are so amazing. I just love quality. Equality for everyone. Yeaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Tense shifts for indirect speech. Semantic range of the continuous present of the verb to be. No? Why am I asking? It’s the journal. Great app, crapp writers.
She was also discriminated against because she did not have the required qualification in the Irish Language, ridiculous, time this changed!
have your say