St Joseph's Boys' School hosts successful Uisce For Gaza coffee Morning
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‘The extraordinarily successful fundraising the school has organised since December 2024 has already funded about 200,000 litres of clean drinking water to people without it’
St Joseph’s Boys’ School in Derry did itself proud, once again, with its buzzing coffee morning in aid of ‘Uisce For Gaza’.
The school’s chosen charity, ‘Uisce For Gaza’ raises funds to provide water trucks for the people of Gaza. The organisation has dedicated volunteers on the ground there who, with continued support, make the vital work possible.
Speaking to The Derry News on Monday morning, St Joseph’s Principal, Mrs Ciara Deane said “really proud” of the boys “would be an understatement”.
“Everything we do at St Joseph’s is for the boys and by the boys and it would be remiss of us not to be working with children globally and nationally, so, there is a big drive in St Joseph’s Boys’," added Mrs Deane.
“We are a Gold Rights Respecting school. We are a compassionate school. We are driven by compassion and leadership.
“From the very beginning, we know our children and young people have been watching Gaza. They are worried about it. They get very stressed and annoyed, and it is the role of an educator to share that and be very careful with the information we give children, hence the event.
“I want to mention Miss Annmarie Meehan, Mr Gerry McBride and Miss Marie-Therese Newton, people who have really invested in their roles as language teachers and teachers of Learning for Life and Work and Citizenship.
“They would have that conversation with children and young people, let them know about the work of Uisce For Gaza, and carefully handle that information for an 11-year-old, a 12-year-old, an 18-year-old and what that means,” said Mrs Deane.
“It is also very much bedded into our community,” she added, “the activism in the community, so we are careful with the information we are sharing.
“We always want our boys to be more than the curriculum. We want them to be leaders in human rights. We want them to be activists. It would be remiss of us not to say we are in a community of activists as well.
“I am very proud this morning and the school is an open door for the community of all ages as well,” said Mrs Deane.
A delighted Siobhain Grogan, chairperson and co-founder of Uisce For Gaza, who travelled from Kildare to Derry for the coffee morning said it was “an absolute privilege to meet the students and staff of St Joseph’s Boys' School”.
“This school is leading the way in how to create positive and active citizens who care about others and take action in a positive, practical way,” she added.
“They take the learning out of the books and into real life where it is desperately needed. Kamal, who delivers our water in Gaza, knows that St Joseph's is our 'super school'.
“The extraordinarily successful fundraising that the school has organised since December 2024 has already funded about 200,000 litres of clean drinking water to people without it.
We always want our boys to be more than the curriculum. We want them to be leaders in human rights
“Access to clean drinking water is a basic human right and to deny it is a breach of international law. Students of today are the leaders of tomorrow and that gives me hope for a more just world.
“Anybody can contact Uisce For Gaza through our social media pages on Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook,” added Ms Grogan.
Co-organisers of the Uisce For Gaza coffee morning, teachers Gerry McBride (IT) and Annmarie Meehan (Spanish and French) stepped out of a bustling assembly hall “so, so proud of our boys, so proud of the staff and so proud of the community”.
“Our political leaders, our Bishop, the Mayor, everyone has come out in full force to support the school and support our effort,” said Ms Meehan.
“A big thanks too to Siobhain from Uisce For Gaza who came the whole way from Kildare to support us,” she added.
“I am so proud of the effort the boys and the staff have put in, and Ciara [Deane] and Fiona Harrigan [Vice Principal] too for allowing it to happen. It has been a whole school effort, a whole community effort. I am really delighted and this is the beginning. It is not the end, it is the beginning,” pledged Ms Meehan.
St Joseph’s Boys’ School got involved in fundraising for Uisce For Gaza through the late Dermott Gallagher and the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) union.
The former St Brigid’s College / Coláiste Bhríde teacher, who sadly died at the beginning of the year, was a great advocate for Gaza.
“This is our fourth fundraiser for Uisce For Gaza,” said Gerry McBride. “We have been raising as much money as we can. The whole school has got behind us, and all the surrounding community.
“It is great to see because most of the boys know something about it and we always do an assembly before an event just to let the boys know what is happening and what we are doing.
“All the boys fully support the fundraising. We try to get the parents involved too. The Christmas coffee morning is always very good as well,” said Mr McBride.
Special guest at the St Joseph’s Boys’ School Uisce For Gaza fundraiser was Mayor Grace Uí Neilis.
Speaking to The Derry News she said was talking to some of the boys and “what they have been doing in the past two years in their campaigning for Uisce For Gaza is unbelievable”.
“They really are leading the way for the children and for the other schools in Derry and wider, to let them know this is something that isn’t acceptable and that we need to keep raising awareness, especially for the youth, we really need to keep them aware.”