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Rodger O’Brien from Mitchelstown pictured on his trip to Capetown last year, after handing over a new home to a family there from the building blitz.

This weekend, Rodger O'Brien from Mitchelstown was meant to have been one of hundreds of volunteers going to Nairobi for a building blitz, but the Niall Mellon Township Trust postponed the trip for the safety of the volunteers, due to the recent attack on the Westgate Shopping Centre.

Rodger said that he is hopeful that a small group of volunteers will still travel over before Christmas, but that it will all depend on safety issues.

Rodger has been going abroad with the trust for more than five years, helping communities to build safe and secure places to live, and this year he was due to go over to help build a new school in Mukuru near Nairobi.

In a statement, Niall Mellon said if they don't feel that they can take appropriate security measures to protect their volunteers, then they will not take them abroad.

"We are postponing this current trip until a later date and will make a reassessment when the security threat level in Nairobi has reduced," he said.

"Having had over 20,000 volunteers working with us in poor communities, we are highly experienced in handling various security issues over many years. But the reality is that no one can protect such a high profile large number of volunteers (350) against a terrorist indiscriminately firing a machine gun at them if such an event was to take place," Niall Mellon continued.

He added that he is very disappointed not to bringing over people who have fundraised so hard for this, but that himself and the Board of Directors have to keep security to the forefront.

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