Trócaire asks people to bring back the box

Trócaire begins its annual call out for a million Trócaire boxes to be returned this weekend. 

Today, Easter Sunday, sees the end of its 2012 Lenten campaign, which focussed this year on the people of Northern Uganda who are trying to rebuild their lives after a devastating twenty-year war.  On Friday, Director of Trócaire, Justin Kilcullen, thanked the people of Ireland for supporting the campaign.

“This kindness is making an extraordinary contribution to changing the lives of some of the world’s poorest people.  Children like Daniel Okweng (pictured), the Ugandan boy on this year’s Trócaire box, will go to school, have enough food and help build their local communities in the future, thanks to this support,” said Mr Kilcullen.

Three hundred people from Daniel Okweng’s community were massacred by rebels from Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army during the Ugandan war.  With donations from Ireland, Trócaire is helping that community to rebuild their lives and farms by providing agricultural training, livestock and seeds, building water sources, setting up savings and loans schemes and supporting trauma counselling.

Mr Kilcullen called on people to return their Trócaire boxes.  "Anyone who has a Trócaire box at home or in work can kindly drop it back to their local parish and we can start putting these generous donations into action.”

The agency is running a national competition for primary schools to design next year’s 2013 Trócaire box that will mark its 40th anniversary.  The closing date for entries is April 27 2012.  Details can be found on www.trocaire.org/education. 

Trócaire is the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland, which was set up in 1973 by the bishops of Ireland to express the concern of the Church in Ireland for the suffering of the world’s poorest people.  It currently works in 28 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.

by Susan Gately