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About Paul

Try to imagine that you’re seven years old with Easter on the way. However, your life isn’t like other people’s. There are drug dealers on the street outside your door. Your father beats your mother almost nightly. Neglect is the norm. Getting noticed means getting hit. Your younger brothers look to you for protection. And for food. But feeding them means stealing the food first.

With problems like that you’d think that getting through Easter without Easter Eggs wouldn’t really matter. But it did to Paul. Paul’s the kind of boy who cares about the little things. And that’s why he spent a week one Easter carrying out a series of carefully planned raids on his local supermarket.

One egg at a time so as not to raise suspicion. Carefully, diligently, amassing a nice collection for Easter Sunday, so that all his brothers got a couple of Easter Eggs each.

Afterwards, Paul felt ashamed for stealing, but he felt proud too. As Paul himself said: “I had to do it. Other kids get four or five Easter Eggs each. My brothers would have got none.” He was seven years old at the time.

For how long can a childhood like that carry on? Not long. For Paul it ended the morning his father nearly beat his mother to death. Social workers were called in, and Paul and his brothers were taken into care.

When Barnardos first met him, Paul was struggling with anger and low self-esteem, getting into trouble at school and fighting with his foster family. He would continually express his bleak outlook on life, saying he came from a bad place, his parents were bad, and he was going to be bad too.

Naturally enough, we thought otherwise. His Barnardos caseworker, Hannah, started working with him within his foster home on a weekly basis. Over the next 18 months, she helped Paul deal with his anger problems. But perhaps most importantly, she helped him rebuild a sense of the person he could become.

As she recalls: “I was able to help Paul see a future for himself. My message to him was: ‘you have control of your destiny. Your past will shape you and make you, but it doesn’t have control of you.”

Through the ongoing generosity of donors like you, we’ve been able to turn Paul’s life and his outlook around completely. He’s settled into life with his foster family and is doing well in school. Thanks to you, Paul now has a very bright future ahead of him. 

Barnardos Fundraising

A: Barnardos National Office, Christchurch Square, Dublin 8.

T: 01 453 0355 (Callsave: 1850 222 300)

E: fundraising@barnardos.ie