Amanda aiming to improve life for the disabled in Haiti
It can’t be an easy thing to give up a good job and dedicate yourself to charity work, but that’s what Mullingar native Amanda Murphy is planning to do this year.
A learning disability nurse based in London, Amanda has been so moved by the work of the Haiti Hospital Appeal – whose headquarters are near her workplace and who she first heard about at a charity ball – that she plans to join their ranks for at least six months, starting in April.
Back home in Mullingar for the holidays, Amanda was making arrangements for fundraising events in Mullingar in February, and told us about her motivation and her plans.
“What I’m going to be doing is educating and promoting awareness for people with learning disabilities in Haiti,” said Amanda. “The education will be for healthcare professionals and families of children with disabilities.
“I will primarily work with the Haiti Hospital Appeal’s respite centre, which is currently open only two days a week because of a lack of funding.”
Amanda says her choice of career is thanks to her mother, Sheila Murphy, who worked for the Sisters of Charity at Grange as a support carer for children with learning disabilities: “That’s why I wanted to become a learning disability nurse,” Amanda explained. She did her training in London and qualified 18 months ago, and is now working at Nash College in Bromley, Kent, where she specialises in “people with profound, multiple, complex disabilities from the ages of 18 to 25”.
Amanda says disability awareness is a massive concern in Third World countries, where the culture is often such that disabled people are sidelined: she knows of several cases where children with disabilities were abandoned at roadsides. Fortunately, the charity she is going to work with looks after them and has even been successful in fostering some of them with other families.
“They [the charity] are keen for me to push disability awareness across the country, in the government services too – even consultants sometimes think it’s black magic, or the child is cursed, rather than considering it a medical condition,” said Amanda.
“When you hear healthcare professionals don’t know what a learning disability is, it’s not that they’re ignorant; they just don’t have the knowledge, but making them aware will improve their clinical experience.”
She says she wants to “really push and promote awareness of what learning disability is, to make people aware of the prime need to understand there are other people who can’t physically do things for themselves, who are not independent and need 24-hour support”.
“I also want Haitian families to be able to accept their children, and not feel they have to abandon them – and to make people here aware of how lucky we are.”
Amanda is looking forward to the challenge of working in Haiti, and is well aware of the difficulties, which include finance and personal security. “They have given me a blank canvas, so I will spend a month familiarising myself with the community and the services, to see what their knowledge is. I’m going out for six months, and if the funding goes well, I’ll stay for longer.”
Amanda explained that the language will be one of her main challenges (she will have to use French, which is widely spoken, alongside Creole), and raising the funds is another: “It’s completely voluntary. I will need €3,500 to see me through six months: that money is for travel, and the charity needs about $500 a month, so about €2,000 for the six months. The $500 is your keep, but the majority goes to security. The whole compound is secure, you will never be on your own – if you need to go anywhere, Haitian people escort you.”
She has lined up help on the fundraising side from friends and family, including her dad, Martin, brothers, David and Declan, her sister-in-law, Michelle, who is a supervisor for Irish Home Care – who live here – and her brother Martin sister-in-law Olivia in NY (where Amanda used to live).
Amanda ran the Dublin Marathon last year to raise funds, when the Crossbar kindly allowed her to go around with a collection bucket – and she is planning a fundraising night on Friday February 28 in the Crossbar.
Looking further ahead, Amanda says it’s time to move on from her current job: “I don’t know where I’m going to go after. I might come back to Mullingar, I’m open to options, I’m leaving my doors open.
“It’s important to remain involved [with the charity]. There might be something you want to set up, or when I got out there, I might see something else they’re lacking in.”