A combination of applied entrepreneurialism and practical solidarity has deservedly caught the public imagination this week as details of an Irish voluntary aid project in Cape Town were publicised in this newspaper and elsewhere.
A group of Irish building workers arrived to spend 10 days in Imizamo Yethu township replacing broken shacks with modern homes. The initiative has been organised by Mr Niall Mellon, a Dublin businessman who was shocked by the poverty he found there, in contrast with the affluence of the nearby seaside suburb in which he recently bought a house.
Some 40 per cent of the 12,000 township residents are without jobs, and many of them are suffering from the HIV/AIDS pandemic afflicting South Africa. Mr Mellon has vowed to build 1,500 brick homes there, financed by himself and another Irish business acquaintance along with the South African government, and using a system of rolling interest-free loans enabling people to buy the homes.
The 153 building workers involved this week have given their time and labour voluntarily and paid their own fares after a series of fund-raising events around the state. They have exceeded their quota of 30 house completions, helped by local township workers - and by 500 white volunteers from the area. At this rate the project seems eminently achievable, involving a marvellous level of practical co-operation by a surprising and ostensibly unlikely combination of people.
Solidarity was the apt word used to describe it by Dr Kader Asmal, the South African Minister for Education, and veteran campaigner here against apartheid, in a greeting to those involved. He recalled the strike by Dunnes Stores workers against the import of produce from the apartheid system and the large demonstrations against the all-white Springbok rugby team, saying solidarity is still a value to be cherished. There can be no doubt that this project continues the tradition in exemplary fashion, drawing creatively on contemporary methods and themes.
It is a reminder that bottom up development projects, involving local communities at both the donor and receiver ends, can be the most effective way to deliver aid. Other examples include Self-Aid, an Irish farmers' initiative with a good record of tackling grassroots poverty in Africa. Ireland's official development aid programme supports such objectives; but it does not often get the publicity it deserves - probably because most projects do not link people up in the way the Imizamo Yethu one has.