Eithne McNulty- Overseas Officer of Self Help Africa

Eithne McNulty of Self Help Africa has just returned from visiting Uganda, as an Overseas Officer where she administered an Irish Aid funded programme on behalf of the charity.

Monday 9 March 2020

Eithne McNulty- Overseas Officer of Self Help Africa

Eithne McNulty of Self Help Africa has just returned from visiting Uganda, as an Overseas Officer where she administered an Irish Aid funded programme on behalf of the charity. With a real interest in gender equality, Eithne reminds us of the women on the front line of climate change and those she works closely with in the communities of Uganda; especially in recent celebrations of International Women's Day.

Rather than seeing it merely as a job, Eithne considers it a privilege to travel to Uganda on two or three occasions each year to be able to witness firsthand, the remarkable work the charity is doing in Soroti. From listening to the touching stories from the women farmers and the demands that life places on them, Eithne is also aware of how they also face each day filled with gratitude and sheer joy! Eithne describes how meeting the women who own and manage small farm holdings in order to provide for their families, with the help of Self Help Africa, is a humbling experience. As women farmers are evolving, adapting and changing the way that they farm – ensuring that there is a future for food production in Africa.

Self Help Africa is working with local communities in sub-Saharan Africa to make small daily changes that have real impact. This is why Eithne is passionate about speaking to women’s groups in Northern Ireland and sharing stories about the difference that Self Help Africa are making to women's lives in Africa. Eithne explains how farmers have started their own women's groups in their local communities; empowering other women to create small plots of green in the dusty ground, developing a vegetable garden for feeding their families and where women are trained in best practice of banana production. They also learn the benefits of working with fuel-efficient mud stoves to assist with tree planting!

Eithne’s passion for international development began when she worked on a range of social justice and poverty alleviation projects, many with a focus on women, in her early career in the Republic of Ireland. Eithne then I moved to Northern Ireland in the 1990s where she worked on an EU funded rural development programme and later on a EU Peace funded programme with women in rural border areas and Belfast’s Falls and Shankill Roads. In addition, Eithne was also an active member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition in the lead up to and following the Good Friday Agreement.

Making a move to international development in 2006, Eithne managed the NI region for the Aid Agency Trocaire and then joined Self Help Africa in 2016, focusing on their poverty reduction programme in North Eastern Uganda. Obtaining a Master’s degree in Social Science from the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Eithne now lives in Fermanagh with her three grown daughters.

If you would like to find out more information about Self Help Africa, about volunteering in your local area or in your local Self Help Africa shop and if you would like to donate, please visit www.selfhelpafrica.org.

You can find out more about how you can get involved in helping women farmers in sub-Saharan Africa or if you would like to find out more about the work that Eithne does in Uganda, email eithne.mcnulty@selfhelpafrica.net.

Tel: 028 90 023 2064

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SelfHelpAfrica/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/selfhelpafrica/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/selfhelpafrica

Twitter: https://twitter.com/selfhelpafrica

Monday 9 March 2020