Turning tears into oceans of aid for orphans in China's "dying rooms"

IN Killiney last week, Sally Keaveney, a young mother of three, watched Channel 4's heartbreaking film, Return to the Dying Rooms. She saw the bundles of helpless, abandoned Chinese babies and children left, neglected and dying, in orphanages in Shanghai and other provinces. The film was shot secretly in five different Chinese locations.

At the other side of the city, in Dundrum, Eugene McDonald, a father of four, was watching the same programme. He did not know Sally Keaveney. He did not know much about China and, like her, was completely unaware of The Dying Rooms, the forerunner to this film, shown earlier this year. Neither of them had ever been interested in causes or politics. Their lives were full with their jobs and their families. McDonald is a self employed electronics engineer. Keaveney is a full time wife and mother who worked for an insurance company before she had her children.

That night Sally Keaveney could not sleep. The images of the children - bound to their cots, strapped into chairs with potties underneath, sucking desperately from bottles that were thrust casually into their mouths, rocking silently and relentlessly backwards and forwards - kept her awake, confused and disturbed. She looked at her own three children - aged seven months, three and five years old - and thought how lucky they were to be born here.

But that was not enough. She could not forget the haunting eyes of Mei Ming (translates as No Name) dying painfully and slowly as a result of deliberate starvation in one orphanage. The staff were not even visiting the room in which she was dying. They were waiting for the other children to tell them when Mei Ming had died. The little bundle of bones held by paper thin skin faded into eternity a few days after the film was shot. Her energy less whimpers were finally quenched.

On Wednesday morning Keaveney joined the queue of people who rang Gerry Ryan on RTE's 2 FM to unload their feelings of anger, despair and helplessness. She left her name and number for anybody who wanted to do something about the orphans.

In Dundrum, Eugene McDonald was on the telephone, bombarding the Chinese Embassy's answering machine with questions. After two and a half hours he was getting nowhere. He went down to the embassy but got no response. He went home again and began ringing Channel 4 for more information. He was passed from Billy X to Jack X and back again. Nobody knew, anything about the film that was made by True Visions Productions.

So he went to the top and left message after message for the Channel 4 boss, Michael Grade. He eventually got a call from Grade who put him in touch with Brian Woods, who co produced the film with Kate Blewett.

On Thursday morning McDonald was on radio, talking to Gerry Ryan. Sally Keaveney heard him. They made contact and the rest is the history of what can happen when self defined "ordinary" members of the public take to the barricades.

In the Sunday Tribune, Karen Murphy, Emma Hirsch and others who were equally distressed had decided to organise a protest meeting. They had fixed a script about the programme to radio stations and newspapers when they met Keaveney and McDonald. Immediately they gave them access to phones and photocopying machines. Karen Murphy, who has five children, has decided to take three weeks of her annual leave to work on the campaign.

In less than 48 hours they had coined a name for themselves - Friends of Chinese Orphans (Ireland) - and organised a protest outside the Chinese Embassy in Ailesbury Road, Ballsbridge, on Saturday afternoon. Some 1,400 supporters turned up - many of them carrying babies in slings and pushing children in buggies. They came from Cork, Tralee, Tipperary, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Wexford and Wicklow as well as all parts of Dublin. Roisin Short hall, Labour TD, went along with her children. Senator Joe Doyle, Fine Gael was there with Fianna Fail TD, Sean Haughey. Gay Mitchell, Minister for European Affairs, is backing them and is seeking a concerted EU response to the problem as is Joan Burton, Minister of State at Foreign Affairs.

They reckon that only one third of the population has access to British television channels and so far, relatively few people have seen it. A spokeswoman confirmed this week that RTE has bought the film but "at the moment we do not have plans for when it will be shown". The first film was bought by 24 foreign countries, according to Channel 4.

The spontaneous help McDonald, and Keaveney have got has been random and instant.

. Cork businessman, Gerry O'Connor, had a fax machine installed in McDonald's house within hours of hearing him on the radio.

. Robert Gilster and his wife, Caitriona, both in the printing business in Kildare, ran off a pile of headed notepaper for them at the weekend and gave them a word processor.

. Lesley Keogh who works in The Irish Times computer department, has obtained a PC from Ergo Services Group and the Trinity Group is funding an e mail address.

. They badly need the use of a city centre office (even in the short term) a sponsored freephone line and a couple of mobile telephones. As I write Telecom's Finuala Byrne is immensely sympathetic and hopefully, something will be worked out.

. A group in Tallaght has offered to, host a wine and cheese function to raise funds while a Dublin school put on a concert to raise funds on Saturday night.

. Roisin Shorthall has offered unconditional support plus practical things such as the use of a photocopying machine.

. They have got pledges of up to £30,000 in cash but so far have not had time to set up an arrangement with a bank.

. Others' around the country have said they are just waiting to be told what to do.

Earlier this week, Keaveney and McDonald were running around from meeting to meeting, talking to radio stations, answering their telephones and running up enormous personal bills contacting people in London, Brussels and further afield. McDonald has set aside his own business and has passed commissions on to colleagues in his line of work. Keaveney is totally dependent on the goodness of her own family, her mother in law and friends to look alter her home and family.

They are an inspiring couple whose lives have been utterly transformed since they watched Return to the Dying Rooms. They have a streak of touching naivety - about how the system works - which makes you feel both protective and admiring of them. They see no hurdles except practical ones and are filled with a fierce determination to save the orphans in "the dying rooms".

"We want to see the Chinese ambassador. We want to get in there and help - those children. We have to get them out of those orphanages. We have no quarrel with the Chinese government. We simply want to raise money and use it to help the children, says Keaveney.

She says they are learning on their" feet about China and its cultural differences. Neither she nor McDonald used phrases or words like "human rights" or sanctions" or any other words in the vocabulary of jargon trotted out by people who call themselves liberal. They are prepared to believe that the Chinese government may know about some of the orphanages but that what goes on in them is not government policy. They are too busy to sit around apportioning blame. So far, they see Just one enormous problem and see no reason why it can not be solved. They want to organise public meetings and have had enough response from people around the country to want this to be done in every area possible outside Dublin.

Both are feisty and focused as they describe what they have done in the past week and what they want to do and then, suddenly, as we talk about the film, Eugene McDonald's eyes fill with tears and Sally Keaveney breaks down and weeps quietly and uncontrollably for a few minutes.

"We have to get them out of those chairs and those cots . . . there were no toys, not enough blankets, nothing for them to hold ... you know the way that children will often have even just a bit of cloth or something to comfort them ... we have to help them".

Neither is particularly religious, but Keaveney says: "I find I am saying `God Bless' to people at the end of a conversation on the phone. I never did that before. Maybe it is because we realise that we need someone really strong on our side now".

The response of the hundreds of people who turned up for last Saturday's meeting amazed and delighted them. Most stood around in the pouring rain at the end waiting to speak to, McDonald or Keaveney.

"I think we must have spoken to about 60 per cent of those who turned up. They shook our hands, hugged us and embraced us and thanked us for - what we were doing. A lot of them felt just like we do and I think they were feeling redundant or something because they had not done anything. One man just said: `thank you for awakening my conscience'," says Keaveney.

And then they were on the phone again. They had to find another copy of the film for Gay Mitchell to take to Strasbourg to show it to the secretary general of the Council of Ministers. Sally is picking up messages from her, home. "What Gay? Is it Gay Mitchell, or Gay Byrne? No, we need the film for Gay Mitchell, Dick left it in Kerry".

And they head off with an ever increasing bundle of information about Chinese adoption laws and much else.

. Many, many thanks for the unprecedented number of letters and calls on the subject of last week's column. I hope to publish extracts of your correspondence as soon as possible. Unlike one, from a man, which appeared on" the Letters Page - telling me if I could "love" myself, learn to "live again" and "laugh", everything would be hunky-dory (my summary) - what planet does this guy inhabit? - the responses are all from the 50 per cent of us who are trying to do just that without being robbed, raped, mugged or murdered.