MEELIN’S PADDY PUTTING HIS BEST BARE FEET FORWARD
MEELIN NURSE LIKENS GLOBAL HUNGER CRISES CAUSED BY COVID TO THE IRISH GREAT FAMINE
A MEELIN man who has dedicated his life to saving the lives of mothers and children in one of India’s most poverty-stricken regions has likened the burgeoning global hunger crisis caused by Covid-19 to that of the Great Famine.
In order to highlight the escalating catastrophe and raise funds for the Mothers First charity, Paddy McMahon will next Monday Mark International Women’s Day by undertaking a 13km ‘Barefoot Paddy Walk’ around his native village.
Having qualified as a nurse in 1998, Paddy packed his bags and spent fiveyears travelling across Asia, starting in India, a country that he always knew he would one day return to. After spending two years as a Buddist Monk in Thailand, he returned to India where was immediately struck by the unfairness of the healthcare system he found in Varanasi, a city of some two million people in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
“Its is a system wherein if you have no money for treatment there is no hospital that will admit you,” he told The Corkman in 2015 after his nomination as a Cork Person of the Month.
He encountered countless numbers of children suffering from the most appalling malnutrition and who were unable to get hospital treatment. His caring and spiritual nature would simply not allow him to walk away and he worked alone for six-months taking children to hospital and paying for their treatment.
With funds running low, Paddy was reluctantly preparing to move back to Ireland until a chance meeting with a local paediatrician set him on a path that was to change his life and the lives of countless children.
Dr RK Singh agreed to give Paddy space in a new private clinic he was setting up and the Varanasi Children’s Hospital, which offers a free health service to the poor, was born.
In addition to the free hospital service, Paddy also helped establish the first Malnutrition Centre in the area, a Mobile Health Unit, a Health Promotion and TB Clinic and a dedicated schools’ health programme.
He also oversaw the establishment of Mothers First, which has helped thousands of malnourished mothers and children by delivering life-saving food and medicine.
The charity believes that by prioritising nutrition in young mothers it can break the cycle of maternal nutrition, pointing to UNICEF’s stance that ‘undernourished girls have a greater likelihood of becoming undernourished mothers who in turn have a greater chance of giving birth to low birth weight babies, perpetuating an intergenerational cycle’.
Paddy says it is all about empowerment and education, so that mothers can in turn lead from within their communities.
“Mothers First is an organisation for women and girls. By breaking the cycle of malnutrition in communities, it begins to address the poverty, injustice and inequality that is holding them back as women.”
The ‘Barefoot Paddy Walk’ was initially to have taken place between Tracton and Kinsale, recalling the 14 kilometres walked by 124 starving citizens to the workhouse in 1850, an event historians mark as having huge significance in Irish history.
However, Covid restrictions mean that it will now take place in Meelin, with Paddy set to don a suit for the walk.
“The symbolism of the suit while walking barefoot is to highlight the inequality of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on different parts of the world,” he says.
“We in Ireland have had a very difficult time, of that there is no doubt. However, the suffering we have endured pales in comparison to what is happening in developing countries.
“By reconnecting with our past, we can understand the growing hunger crisis that is exacerbated by the Covid crisis. The devastation of Ireland’s Famine that destroyed thousands of families is not dissimilar to the burgeoning global hunger crisis emanating from this pandemic,” he adds.
The Barefoot Paddy Event will be live-streamed on Facebook from 9.30am on March 8, beginning with an opening ceremony followed by progress updates of the walk and a closing ceremony in Meelin.
Find the full details of the event on the events page of Mothersfirst.net.