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Ray O'Hanlon, Irish Echo, 15-21 November 2006, Vol 79 No.46
The Irish international aid agency GOAL notched up a record-breaking night at its 18th annual New York ball last week.
But more than 400 revelers were disappointed at the fact that the charity's founder, Irish sports journalist John O'Shea, was unable to make the event.
O'Shea has been told to rest up on doctor's orders but his message of work accomplished, and work to be done around a troubled world, was delivered at the packed event by his daughter, Lisa O'Shea.
O'Shea urged the crowd of more than 450 to "shout, scream and roar" on behalf of the world's "poorest of the poor" who were daily facing into problems that could barely be imagined by those lucky enough to be living in the developed world.
O'Shea lamented the current situation in Darfur, the strife-torn region in western Sudan where GOAL workers have been facing the consequences of a surge of refugees, hunger and genocidal attacks by forces allied to the Sudanese Government.
O'Shea expressed frustration at the lack of United Nations action in Darfur while saying that the U.S Government - which has raised the specter of genocide in the region - had accurately portrayed the crisis faced daily by hundreds of thousands of people.
The ball, held at Gotham Hall in midtown Manhattan, raised, according to the organization's initial estimate, over $488,000 for GOAL's world-wide work. This figure is twice the sum raised last year.
Part of the money raised will be going to a school building project run by GOAL in Niger, now rated as the world's poorest nation.
GOAL was founded in Calcutta by John O'Shea in 1977 and has over the years enlisted the support of leading sportsmen and women on both sides of the Atlantic. The New York ball was organized by the agency's American offshoot, GOAL USA.
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