Hugh O’Flaherty prize going to Sudan-based Sister Orla Treacy

SATURDAY night will see Killarney Avenue Hotel host one of the town’s most special award ceremonies from 8pm – and this year’s Hugh O’Flaherty International Humanitarian Award night will also include some worthy new features.

Sister Orla Treacy, a Loreto Sister based in South Sudan, was named as the 2017 recipient in September, and she will accept her award on Saturday night. The initiative is now into its 10th year, and aims to raise awareness of Killarney’s Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who saved around 6,500 people in Nazi-occupied Rome during the Second World War.

Sr Orla has spent more than a decade in Africa amd is Principal of the Rumbek girls secondary school in South Sudan, one of the poorest and fragile nations in the world. South Sudan has one medical doctor per 65,000 citizens, and a girl of 15 is more likely to die in childbirth than she is to finish secondary school.

In this most challenging environment, Sr Orla, daughter of former Kerry County Secretary Blaise Treacy, and her colleagues are establishing educational and medical services that could not be more urgently needed.

With Sr Orla set to be rightly honoured this weekend, it’s also worth noting a significant new element to the occasion. Students from various schools in Killarney Parish will make a €1,000 Bursary presentation to Sr Orla at the ceremony, while she will also offer her extraordinary insight into life in Sudan.

She will speak at the ceremony about the challenges she and her colleague face on a daily basis to educate the young people of South Sudan and the unique opportunity to hear her is open to the public.

Further information is available from the Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Society, contactable at (064) 6637928 and info@hughoflaherty.com.

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