ONE of the most senior members of the African Catholic Church was in Limerick last weekend, thanking local people for their fundraising efforts and attempting to foster links with the city and his home country of Ghana.Cardinal Peter Turkson, Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana, who is widely tipped to be the first African Pope, arrived in Limerick and spent the Thursday morning visiting the University of Limerick and Mary Immaculate College to try to encourage students to visit Ghana.
The Ghanaian cardinal – the first in his country’s history and a member of the 2005 papal enclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI – also met the Junior Minister for Overseas Aid, Peter Power, as well as celebrating Mass in a number of city churches over the weekend.
His hosts also hope to bring the cardinal to Thomond Park for the Magner’s League match between Munster and Leinster on Saturday.
Cardinal Turkson is being hosted by members of the Limerick-based Ghana Ireland Friendship Trust (GIFT) which has raised €45,000 so far to fund healthcare projects in the African country.
GIFT spokesman Ger Maher said he and his wife, Rachel, became involved in the charity after their daughter spent six weeks in Ghana in a 2004 exchange programme between Castletroy College and the Sisters of Mary and Joseph in Ahoutokurom.
“Orla, my daughter, went out in 2004 with several of her classmates from Castletroy College and stayed with two Irish nuns based in Ghana,” explained Ger.
“Rachel and I visited in January 2008 to see first hand what it was like and we travelled around Ghana. We met the cardinal while we were there and invited him to come here and visit us, which he has.”
GIFT has subsequently held a variety of fundraising activities to raise funds for the accommodation wing of the Mankessim Maternity Hospital in Ghana – a facility that had lain dormant until the intervention of the Limerick-based charity.
The hospital has begun taking patients on the strength of GIFT’s commitment to provide €75,000 in funding this year, with a target of €200,000 set for the next 12 months. The hospital wing is specifically aimed at the health of women and children who cannot get access to state run hospitals.
“A total of 112 children of every 1,000 born in Ghana will die before the reach the age of five and if we could attack that figure, it would be great,” said Ger.
The cardinal visited the Graduate Medical School in UL Thursday morning and also visited hospitals around Limerick in the hope that students and health-care professionals might travel to Ghana and devote their time and skills to helping those in need.
Prospective teachers in Mary I were also encouraged to travel to the country.
“We are targeting the health and education sectors and if we got people to travel to Ghana that would be nearly as important as fundraising.
The cardinal is a very intellectual, yet humble, man and hopefully this visit will raise the profile of what we are trying to do in Ghana,” said Mr Maher.
For more details on GIFT, contact Ger Maher, c/o GIFT, Mary Rosse Centre, Holland Road, Plassey.
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(Source: Limerick Leader)