Aid agency pays tribute to Derry volunteers at Stormont event marking 50 years of charity’s work

International aid organisation Concern Worldwide has paid tribute to volunteers and supporters from Derry at an event at Stormont to mark 50 years of the charity’s work.

Members of Concern’s Derry Support Group and volunteers from the charity’s second-hand bookshop on Ferryquay Street were among more than 200 guests invited to Belfast to celebrate half a century of the humanitarian relief and development agency.

They heard from Concern co-founder John O’Loughlin-Kennedy, Belfast man Dominic MacSorley, who heads up the almost 4,000-strong organisation, Concern’s UK Executive Director Rose Caldwell, and international country directors from Malawi, Ethiopia, DRC and Burundi.

Charlie Glenn, who’s a member of the local support group, said: "I think I can speak for all of Concern’s volunteers in Derry when I say that the 50th celebration in Stormont was a memory to cherish. To hear about the foundations of the charity was wonderful and a great morale booster."

Speaking at the event, Concern CEO Dominic MacSorley paid tribute to the extraordinary generosity and compassion of local volunteers including those from Derry who have been the driving force behind its success in fighting global hunger and poverty over the past 50 years.

“Back then, the response of the public was phenomenal. Images of war and starvation broadcast into homes across the island tapped into the instinctual empathy and generosity of people north and south and this is what has continued to sustain Concern over the past 50 years,” he said.

Founded in 1968 in response to devastating famine in the breakaway state of Biafra, Nigeria, Concern is now one of the leading international aid agencies in the UK and the largest in Ireland, reaching 27 million people in 27 of the world’s poorest countries last year.

If you would like to join Concern’s volunteer group in Derry or become a shop volunteer, please call 028 9033 1100 or visit: www.concern.org.uk

Pictured: Concern’s Derry bookshop volunteers: Jill Devine, Máire McReynolds, Laurence Hegarty, Christina Nicholl and Carmel McGrenra.