Charity crib display makes return

THE celebrated Tattysallagh Crib Festival is back again and will be held this weekend at the new venue of St Joseph’s Hall in Omagh.

Retired teacher Babs Barrett, who is a veteran volunteer with Mellon Educate building and renovating schools in one of the poorest areas of South Africa, has been exhibiting her vast collection of cribs from around the world since 2017.

These have been hugely successful fund-raising events raising much needed money for Mellon Educate’s building programme. Mellon Educate was previously known as Niall Mellon Township Trust, a charity, established in 2002, to build homes for people who lived in shacks in shanty towns on the outskirts of Cape Town.

Babs has volunteered on these projects regularly since she retired from teaching in St Conor’s School in 2010. Unfortunately, she could not travel this year, but her nephew James Barrett went on the blitz as her replacement.

She explained, “I am very passionate about the need to generate awareness of the plight of the people in the shanty towns. It is heart wrenching to witness the appalling conditions in which the families live.”

Babs has continued to add to her array of cribs from around the world with nativity sets from Zimbabwe, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Poland, Ghana and Ecuador to name a few of those added to her collection. She has an immense interest in the range of styles, shape and size of the nativity sets depending on which country they are from.

Everyone is welcome to come along this Saturday or Sunday between 10am and 7pm and avail of this opportunity to experience the way Christ’s birth is depicted by the different countries represented in this exhibition.

There will be tea or coffee and some light refreshments for everyone viewing the selection of cribs on display.

All donations will go directly to Mellon Educate’s building programme of renovating and building schools in the townships of South Africa, where children live in shacks in abject poverty. Donations can be made to: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/helen-barrett22