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Claire Murphy from Castletownroche, who is following her dream to do aid work in Africa this summer. Claire is currently fundraising for the trip.

Life is busy these days for young Castletownroche woman, Claire Murphy, as she finishes up her college course while running a whole host of events in a fundraising campaign ahead of her trip to Africa this summer.

Claire has organised to worked with the aid agency SERVE, Solidarity in Action. She says it's been her dream since she was a child to work in Africa and she's thrilled to have been accepted. She'll be part of a team of ten of mixed ages and professions travelling from Cork.

They will visit a hospice, do outreach work with families in squatter camps and work in crèches while there. There'll also be development work on either a new build or the refurbishment of one of the existing treatment clinics.

Claire must fund the trip herself and she also wants to be in a position to donate monies raised to projects while she's there.

She got started months go, organising a Christmas raffle at Mallow bingo and a music event, called 'Showcase for SERVE', in Cork. She held a table quiz in the East Village Bar & Restaurant in Douglas with a raffle on the night.

Currently there's a raffle running in Sandra's Hair Salon in Mitchelstown. The prize is a professional hairdryer, Botox hair products and a voucher for the salon.

Claire is organising a second raffle at the bingo in Mallow, to be held on April 27. She'll also be selling tickets for a further raffle that night that will take place at the end of May or the start of June. That raffle is for a dinner party. The super prize will see a chef come to the home of the winner to cook for six people, with musical entertainment thrown in.

Claire is getting great support for her efforts from her local community in Castletownroche. She has left donations boxes with the kind co-operation of Denis Downey's Centra in Castletownroche, Frankie Nash's petrol stations and Hickey's shop and petrol station in Ballyhooly. There's also a sponsor card in The Castle Arms pub in Castletownroche.

There's an online option to donate too. People can follow the link on the www.mycharity.ie website to do so.

While all that is going on, Claire is finishing up a five year stint studying youth and community work. It's a poignant time for her. Five years ago, she recalls, her life changed. Three days before her dad died of cancer, he reminded her that she was in her job, which was only ever meant to be a stop-gap, at that stage for seven years. He told her he thought she'd be the one in the family to go to college.

On the day he was buried, her employer announced voluntary redundancies. Claire took it as a sign, took her redundancy, planning originally to do a two-year course in fashion design. "I have a love of shoes!" she says, by way of explanation.

That course didn't go ahead. A lovely, kind-hearted neighbour, she says, pointed her in the direction of social studies, telling her she'd be well suited to it.

Claire's first placement when in college, saw her develop a passion for working with young people. She progressed to do a course in youth work in Fermoy. That led to her applying, and being accepted on a three-year degree programme in UCC.

"It has been an amazing experience, educationally and emotionally," says Claire, who credits the support she got from family and friends for making it possible.

Graduation will be a bitter-sweet time, she says, as she remembers her dad, who set her on the path to college and who won't be there to celebrate her achievement. "I'm so thankful though to have had his influence in my life," she says.

There's no doubt but that her dad would be very proud of Claire, not just for going to college and getting her degree but for following her dream to travel to Africa to help the less fortunate.

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