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SCHOOLBOY Shane McCarthy was so moved by TV documentaries focusing on the victims of the Syrian conflict that he was determined this festive season to lend a helping hand.
He set up a one-man mission to collect as many items of warm clothing and bedding to help the families freezing in refugee camps in neighbouring Lebanon and Jordan.
His efforts did not go unnoticed in the community as friends, neighbours and complete strangers rallied round with so many items that he had to turn his sister’s bedroom into a storage facility.
Shane, 14, a Year 9 pupil of St Christopher’s School, who lives with his parents in Al Jasra, said: “It has been truly amazing. Clothing and blankets arrived from friends and neighbours and at my school all of the pupils and teachers filled the collection box time and time again.
“My sister’s bedroom became the storage depot. I was delighted by the response and the positive support I received from everyone.
“People I had never met before took the time to bring clothes and blankets to my house.
“I would like to thank everyone who participated or leant a helping hand in any way.”
The clothing and blankets will be collected later this week and transported by His Majesty King Hamad’s Office to the refugee camps, as part of the kingdom’s mission to offer assistance.
Shane explained: “I have seen multiple news articles and documentaries on TV about the struggles of the Syrian people. So many left their homes with nothing more than what they could carry and are now in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan.
“I also had heard people say: ‘Oh it’s horrible what is happening there’. So I decided to try to do something to make a difference. And a simple idea suddenly became a large project.
“I decided to ask neighbours, friends and my fellow pupils to gather any warm clothes or blankets that they no longer used.
“I know that people give to so many charities and so I did not want to ask for money or for people to buy anything, but rather to look in their cupboards and drawers to see what they had that was just sitting there unused.
“I also went to my head of year in school and asked him to put a small notice in the school bulletin, telling people that I would be collecting warm clothes for those that had been displaced from Syria. He agreed and asked me to also make a short speech at the year group assembly.
“Other teachers saw me speak and invited me to address other year groups. I placed a large box in the reception area of the senior school labelled ‘Syrian Refugees’ where people could place unwanted clothing.”
The school’s head of languages also held a fund-raising event to collect money for the cause and raised BD110. It will go directly to help refugee children who are hospitalised in a camp in Jordan.
An influential member of one of Bahrain’s long-established families stepped in to assist too. Shane explained: “I would like to thank Suzy Kanoo for being very kind in supporting me and agreeing to liaise with His Majesty’s Office and ensure that the clothes and blankets are sent to the camp in Jordon.
“She will also personally deliver the sponsorship money to the hospital when she travels there in January. I would also like to thank Mr Bazzouz, my languages teacher, for holding the fund-raising event, Mikael Leijonberg, of GAC, who supplied the boxes and my family who supported my idea from the beginning.”
The Irish teenager was born in Bahrain. Dad John, an IT business systems project manager, and mum Caroline, are proud of their son’s efforts. Caroline said: “I am immensely proud of him. He has a big heart and the determination to make a difference.” The couple also have two daughters, Orla, 19, studying Biomedical Science at the University of Manchester, and Tara, 16, boarding at Millfield School in England, which allowed him the space to bring his plans to fruition.
The McCarthy family’s hometown is Cork and they arrived in the kingdom in August, 1998, from Indonesia, planned to stay for 18 months and are still here 15 years later.
Determined Shane has just got started. “I now realise that if you put your mind to it you really can make a difference. I would like to do something like this again in the future and perhaps visit the camps for myself.”
The United Nations has appealed for $6.5 billion for Syria and its neighbours to help 16 million people next year, many of them hungry or homeless victims of a 33-month-old conflict that has no end in sight.
UN emergency relief co-ordinator Valerie Amos said: “The increasing number of internally displaced people and refugees is generating greater needs across all sectors and straining the capacities of neighbouring countries, with profound regional consequences.”
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) aims to feed 4.25 million people in Syria, where it was only able to reach 3.4 million in November.
“This is the worst humanitarian crisis that we have seen in decades, with every day more vulnerable Syrians pushed into hunger,” Muhannad Hadi, WFP’s Syria Emergency Co-ordinator, said.
