Sunday walk keeps Hope on the road

THE annual Hope Guatemala charity walk raised €4,000 on Sunday and more money is still coming in to help further the West Kerry-based charity’s work with the impoverished Mayan people of the Guatemalan highlands.

Some 150 people took part in the walk which enjoys a very loyal following, so much so that some of the groups of teenage friends who joined the walk from Dingle to Árd a’ Bhóthar this year first took part as infants in prams pushed by their parents.

Hope Guatemala director Ed Mulvihill (who is well known from the Grey’s Lane Bistro) said he was very happy with the day and particularly the support that the walk gets from local volunteers, SHU students and the West Kerry schools whose pupils help feed and water the walkers – as well as taking part themselves.

Since 2005 Hope Guatemala, a small, West Kerry-based charity with a branch in Listowel and a sister operation in Germany, has helped provide food, water, housing, education and essential medical aid for native Mayan people in Guatemala. All the money raised from Sunday’s walk will be used to further that work, which is of vital importance in indigenous communities that are essentially abandoned by their own government.

Hope Guatemala’s next fundraising event will be a coffee morning in the Grove Café on the Spa Road (opposite Lidl) from 10am – 12 noon on Friday, April 26. Hope also has an upcoming raffle for a selection of works by local artists. Tickets for this will be on sale during Féile na Bealtaine and the draw will be held on the May Bank Holiday Sunday.

Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne third year students Ailisa Finn-Ní Shé, Sinéad O’Connor and Alanna Hand feeding the walkers in Páidí Ó Sé’s - with a little help from Ed Mulvihill of the Grey’s Lane Bistro.

Eamon O’Connor and Seán McGillicuddy, who organises the Listowel branch of Hope Guatemala, on the road to Árd a’ Bhóthar.

Photos by Declan Malone Mattie O’Halloran, Macdara Ó Dubháin and Tomás Moran in Árd a’ Bhóthar at the end of the annual Hope Guatemala Walk on Sunday.