News

This year Bóthar celebrate it’s fifteenth anniversary, chief executive of Bóthar Peter Ireton was one of the founding members of Bóthar. Here are his thoughts on the last fifteen years.

It has been a great honour for me to act as General Secretary and Chief Executive of the Bothar organisation for the past 15 years. It has been a wonderful experience for me and the most rewarding imaginable when I look at our records of the tens of thousands of families that we have given a fresh start in life and an opportunity to lift themselves out of their poverty.

For such a small organisation coming from such a small country the impact that we have had has been hugely disproportionate to our size. By harnessing the good will and efforts of thousands of people from all over Ireland and putting this together with the contribution of our international partners in the US, the UK, France, the Netherlands and most recently Canada, we have managed to plough deep furrows of self reliance and prosperity in regions that were desolate, hopeless and often forgotten.

It is my firm belief that together we can build Bothar into a much larger and more effective international development organisation in the coming years. I believe that before another 15 years has passed the work of Bothar will be known and recognised world wide, I believe that Bothar and our international partners working with livestock in world development will be significant contributors to the greatest aspiration that mankind has ever had – to make poverty history.