Photo was taken at the Oriel House Hotel, Ballincollig, Co.Cork (Irl)

Pat McCarrick at the launch of his book ‘Faces and Places’ during the week.

More in Thought For Today below

Thought on Saturday – June – 23/06/2012

‘I feel that each image should either tell a story or ask a question. I will leave the interpretation to those who view them’ ~Pat McCarrick

Pat McCarrick has just launched a book on behalf of B√≥thar to raise funds for the charity. Their main work is to provide poverty stricken families with a farm animal together with training and support. The book is called ‘Faces and Places’. In his speech Pat talked about the developing world. For many years it was called the third world. We hear many statistics on the developing world: 1.2 billion live on 1 Euro a day while another 2.8 billion live on 2 Euro a day. 33,000 children die each day in developing countries. Each minute more than one woman dies during childbirth. 11 million children under 5 die each year from preventable causes and a staggering 163 million children under 5 are underweight. It is estimated that 100 million school age children will not be in school by 2015. Contaminated drinking water and inadequate supplies of water affect millions, while 2.4 billion people are without access to basic sanitation.

There are many more statistics but as Pat McCarrick pointed out we tend to push them to one side because they are from the developing world and we move on. So instead of using the words ‘developing world’ we need to come up with something new. Even to use the words ‘our world’ puts a whole different perspective on things. To say that 33,000 children die each day in our world is quite different to saying it happens in the developing world. The book is a moving and uplifting collection of photographs from many parts of the world where B√≥thar is involved. It is available in all bookshops and money raised from the book will go to B√≥thar.