Celtic FC Foundation Spreads Its Wings To Ecuador

OVER 130 years on from the formation of Celtic, Marist Brother Walfrid’s legacy remains at the forefront of the Celtic Family.

- Ciara Bradley

Brother Walfrid’s first aim was to raise funds to provide food for the Irish poor of the East End of Glasgow, who were discriminated against, greatly impoverished and, amongst other deprivations, had a high rate of infant mortality.

Today, as well as in Scotland and Ireland, the Celtic Family stretches through many countries, continuing to evolve and promote those initial aims and values established by our Founding Father.

This is also what Father Martin Chambers has sought to do via his Ecuador Trust over the past 15 years.

During 2018, Fr Martin, my sister Aoife and Dad Joe, visited some of Ecuador’s poorest in a small shanty town called Nuevo Prosperina, just outside of one of the country’s main cities of Guayaquil. We also visited some recently struck earthquake disaster areas in the north of the country with Fr Martin’s charity.

Until 2009, Fr Martin had spent five years there as a missionary priest, a contemporary Brother Walfrid in more ways than one. His ‘mission’ now is located in an around the Scottish town of Kilmarnock, based at the parish of St Mathew’s.