SR BRIDGET TIGHE WINS HUMANITARIAN AWARD FOR WORK IN GAZA
BALLINDOON NATIVE SR BRIDGET TIGHE SPEAKS TO SORCHA CROWLEY ABOUT WINNING AN INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN AWARD FOR HELPING THE POOREST OF THE POOR IN GAZA
DRIVING through a checkpoint in Gaza, Sr Bridget’s phone pinged with a new email. Waiting in the lengthy security queue can be tedious, so she opened the email from Trócaire out of curiosity. It informed her she had been chosen for the charity’s inaugural Romero International Award in recognition of her humanitarian work in Gaza and the Middle East.
“I was really amazed. I was in the car with Caritas staff. I said I was honoured to accept it in the name of my family, and community and Caritas Jerusalem,” she told The Sligo Champion on a quick trip home to Sligo.
She’s come a long way since she first left the shores of Lough Arrow as a young woman in 1963 - she is now General Director of Caritas Jerusalem, a charity which carries out humanitarian and pastoral work in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
“I do it willingly. I certainly have the advantage of knowing Caritas from the grassroots,” she said.
She first worked in Gaza at the end of the 2014 war. “I really wanted to go back and serve the poorest of the poor. I have a very varied background. I worked in Cambridge for 11 years. I went to university in Cambridge later in life to study Theology,” she said.
“I went into Gaza and liked what Caritas were doing. I met the then director, a priest. He said it was very difficult to live in Gaza but said they might give me a bit of responsibility given my background. I ended up being Executive Director of Caritas in Gaza.
“That’s how I met up with Trócaire. When I went there, it was very soon after the war.
“It was very sad in Gaza, so much destruction, so much poverty and Caritas staff - all Gazans -had done so much work during the war.
“But of course they were tired and traumatised like everybody else so I was only there a very short time when I saw that my real mission there would be to help and develop and support the local staff and get them what thethey needed to do to do their work and help them,” she said.
“They were wonderful. I could come in and out of Jerusalem easily and I could speak for them to headquarters in Jerusalem.
How was an Irish Catholic nun received by the Arabic population?
“They’re all Muslims. I found only welcome and co-operation. I asked the same question, I was going in as a foreigner. I had no problems. I had the opposite. I think they were longing for leadership. They were longing for someone to care for them.
“People from Caritas Headquarters could not get into them in Gaza, because they were palestinians. With the ordinary people, about 2 million in that tiny strip, only about 1,000 are Christians.
“Caritas Jerusalem is very well known and respected because we work with the poor and in healthcare in Gaza, psychosocial help for parents and children traumatised by war.
“Some of the children I met had seen their brother blown up by a bomb. Awful, awful, awful things.
“If you’re a young person of 18 years now in Gaza, you’ve lived through at least three wars, plus occasional bombings. You’ve probably never been out of the Gaza Strip. What’s your future?
“It’s the lack of hope that’s hardest to address, and the fact that they can’t travel, that’s what they find hardest.
“That was my time in Gaza, but I was very happy in Gaza,” she said.
Sr Bridget grew up on a farm above Cromleach Lodge, one of five children of Mary and John Tighe.
“It’s the one place on earth I can really relax because it’s not just a lovely place, it’s home to me in every sense,” she said chatting to this newspaper in her brother Christy’s home.
She has very happy memories of her childhood: “We were so free. We had no car. We went to school across the fields, the beauty and freedom of it.”
Sr Bridget went to England to train as a nurse a few weeks after her 18th birthday in 1963.
She joined the Franciscan Missionaries of Divine Motherhood (FMDM) Order in 1965, mid-way through her nursing training.
“I was young and headstrong. I like to say to people of course I’m no longer headstrong,” she smiled.
After a number of years working as a midwife in Jordan she studied Theology and Religion at Cambridge University, did a Masters degree in Health Economics at the London School of Economics. She was then asked to run a new small college for Catholic women in Cambridge, associated with the University - the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology.
She worked for 11 years there to build it up and even cleared their mortgage in that time.
Sr Bridget’s superiors then asked her to go to Zambia which she readily agreed to but took a break in the Holy Land first. It led to her return to the Middle East instead of Zambia.
Last Saturday St Bridget received her award at the Franciscan Convent in Ballinasloe.
Launched last October, the award commemorates the inspiring work of Blessed Oscar Romero, the late Archbishop of San Salvador, who fought against poverty and repression in his native El Salvador.
“It’s a great honour, receiving this award from Ireland and from Trócaire,” said Sr Bridget.
“I couldn’t think of anything better because most of my adult life and professional life has been spent outside of my home country and for Ireland to recognise my work abroad is truly a great honour.”
Trócaire Executive Director Éamonn Meehan congratulated Sr Bridget on being awarded the inaugural Romero International Award:“Trócaire is delighted to be honouring Sr Bridget. Throughout her long and distinguished career she has dedicated herself to the service of the poor and the vulnerable.
“This award honours people who embody the values of Blessed Oscar Romero, who was murdered because of his support for justice and peace. Sr Bridget’s work is vital and we at Trócaire are proud to support it.”
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