Helen O'Malley and Colette O'Sullivan, ACARA Action Projects
Colette O’Sullivan (above right)
Colette became involved in fundraising in December 2004 when she signed up for the trek to Brazil in aid of Barretstown. Since then has fundraised for and trekked to Vietnam and Lesotho on behalf of Barretstown.
Vietnam was a turning point for Colette and upon returning she came up with the idea of establishing a company that would organise treks and challenges for other charities and where corporates could be twinned with charities to fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibility requirements.
The whole idea is to enable people to step out of their comfort zone while having fun and also giving something back to charity. This idea grew into what now is ACARA.
Coming from a corporate background, Colette has been involved in helping a number of web companies to establish themselves. She has managed relationships with a number of key clients which include: AIB, Dublin Airport Authority, Vhi, MSN Microsoft and Yahoo!
Before returning to Ireland in 1999, Colette worked in London and all over the UK helping to establish a franchise chain. The chain grew from 10 to 100 outlets in the course of 12 months.
Helen O’Malley (above left)
Helen spent the last 12 years fundraising for Barretstown on a part-time voluntarily basis. Then for the past three and a half years she was The Community Fundraiser and then The Events Manager. One of the projects that she was responsible for introducing to Barretstown was the Trek Challenges. It was the first call to action made to the public where they could actively take part in Barretstown’s fundraising drive. The first trek to Brazil in May/June 2005 proved to be a huge success. It netted the charity over a quarter of a million Euro and each trek since has been very successful. Another benefit of the treks is that a new group of supporters was developed.
Helen has always been involved in fundraising, both voluntarily and professionally for various charities over the years and it has been a lifelong ambition of hers to be in a position to set up an overseas project.
The Trek to Lesotho in May 2007 was the inspiration to set up the ‘ACARA Lesotho Build Project’. Both Helen and Colette met with the Lesotho Ambassador and discussed how ACARA could help make a difference in the lives of the Lesotho people. While Helen was in Lesotho she visited a number of villages which require assistance and after a lot of discussions with the Ambassador, ‘Phoku Village’ was chosen as the pilot scheme for ACARA.
