SOUTH AFRICA: Deaglán de Bréadún in Cape Town reports on the project to help the people of Imizamo Yethu.
It is a long journey from Dublin to South Africa. Bleary-eyed after flying all night, some 150 Irish building workers arrived at the Imizamo Yethu township outside Cape Town last week to view the site where they would spend the next 10 days, replacing broken-down shacks with modern homes.
The chief organiser of the project, Dublin businessman and developer Niall Mellon, had arranged a reception committee to greet them. The brickies, carpenters, electricians and plasterers could hardly believe their eyes as Andrea, Sharon, Caroline and Jim of The Corrs welcomed them to the township.
The group was in town to take part in the weekend's fund-raising concert for Nelson Mandela's campaign against HIV/AIDS. Mellon chuckled at the reaction of the Irish builders, who had given up their free time and raised funds to pay their own airfare to South Africa.
At only 36 years of age, Mellon is a millionaire several times over. His business empire stretches from Ireland to the UK to South Africa. He owns the Henry Grattan pub on Dublin's Baggot Street as well as a number of hotels around the town. He currently has building projects under way in 12 British cities.
But if Mellon has the Midas touch, he also has a sense of compassion. Indeed, one would need a heart of stone not to be moved by the plight of the residents of Imizamo Yethu. The squalor of their living conditions has to be seen to be believed. Sadly, it is by no means untypical of shanty-town existence for black people all over South Africa and in neighbouring countries.
Mellon went to South Africa on holidays a few years ago and bought a comfortable house by the sea in the fashionable quarter of Hout Bay. But instead of lying back in the glorious sunshine, he decided to do something practical to help the deprived residents of Imizamo Yethu, only 10 minutes' drive from his holiday home.
There are 12,000 people in the township and the rate of unemployment is 40 per cent, with HIV/AIDS infection at about 30 per cent. Mellon set himself the target of building 1,500 modern brick houses and funded the project, which began two years ago, with €1 million.
He followed this up with a further million in interest-free loans to help the locals buy these new homes. As the loans are paid off, the money will be lent to other applicants who would not be entertained by any commercial bank or building society.
Paddy Kelly, a builder and developer from Co Tipperary and a business associate of Mellon's, put up €999,999 for the project. "He didn't want to upstage me," laughed Mellon. The South African government is paying 25 per cent of the cost.
Meanwhile, with the assistance of the RTÉ sports broadcaster Des Cahill, word was passed around the Irish building trade that skilled men and women were required to help out in Imizamo Yethu. Fundraising events were held all over Ireland, to meet the cost of the trip and, finally last week, 153 building workers embarked on their 10-day adventure.
Each morning the workers are on site by 6.30 a.m. and spend the rest of the day labouring in the Cape Town sun. "'Tis mighty," said Karl Stack, a plasterer from Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare. "It's an experience," he said, pausing briefly from his work
Bricklayer Aidan Greene from Cabinteely, Co Dublin, was setting new records with his productivity. His extra zest derives from the fact that, in the past, he suffered serious injury in an accident that put him on a life-support machine for a long time. "I never thought I would work again, so I was delighted to come here," he said.
About 20 of the group are women, including Mary Gallagher, originally from Sligo but now working in Dublin. As well as helping to put down foundations for some of the houses, she also does administrative work for the project, zipping around the site on a dune-buggy, pointing out proudly that the women on the team can "turn their hand to everything".
Their target is to build 30 houses, ranging from 500 to 800 square feet in area, before they head back to Ireland.
But such is the pace and intensity of the work that they may exceed this figure.
An Imizamo Yethu resident and mother of two teenagers Dorothy Sobukwe watched contentedly as her new two-bedroomed home materialised out of the ground. "It is really beautiful," she said.
About a mile in the distance, the luxurious villas of privileged South African whites gleamed in the sun. But, said Mellon, over 500 white people gave their labour free to help the scheme. "You are seeing a new, younger generation of white South Africans prepared to work to help their black neighbours."
Mellon also recently brought a group of nine loyalists from the Shankill Road to work in the township as part of the Belfast-based Alternatives to Violence Initiative.
Township residents are also working on the project. Under the Job Reservation Act of the old apartheid system, black workers were not allowed to acquire skills such as painting or carpentry.
Ireland's Ambassador to South Africa, Mr Gerard Corr hosted a barbecue for the group the night after they arrived where he read out a letter of greeting from the Minister of Education, Prof Kader Asmal, on behalf of the South African Government.
Prof Asmal, who spent many years in exile in Ireland as a lecturer in Trinity College, Dublin, said the project was another practical illustration of "the great sense of solidarity that Irish men and women have shown towards the oppressed in South Africa".
Recalling the Dunnes Stores workers' strike over imported produce from South Africa and the massive anti-apartheid protest during the visit of the all-white Springbok rugby team, Prof Asmal said it was "very important that the same sense of solidarity . . . continues today".
Mellon had to leave the reception early, as he had been invited to a dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela who wanted to meet him. There would be a star-studded attendance, including Bono and The Edge of U2 and, of course, The Corrs.
Whether it's rock-stars or block-layers, Niall Mellon will take any help he can get.