Time to give Jack and Jill a call!

THE JACK and Jill Foundation is a charity that works to help families of children with brain damage who suffer severe intellectual and physical developmental delay.

Liam Aylward and Adrian O'Higgins

The Foundation has recently been running a campaign to raise funds by asking for the donation of old mobile phones. It is estimated that for every 250 phones recycled it is the equivalent in funding to one month of nursing care which can be given to a family.

Liam Aylward MEP, in supporting this campaign has donated used mobile phones collected from European Parliament staff. His intern Kilkenny man Adrian O'Higgins iniatiated this project in the European Parliament.

Liam told Kilkenny Alive: "Everyone has old mobile phones lying around and the Foundation's request has had a great response form the Parliament staff. This is an extremely worthwhile cause and I would encourge people to  donate their disused phones to the Jack and Jill Foundation."

Adrian O'Higgins is a 21 year old student and proud Kilkennyman in his  third year studying Law and European Studies at the University of Limerick.

He attended the CBS Secondary School, James's Street in Kilkenny city. He is on Co-operative Education from UL which is essentially work experience for eight months. He spent the summer in Washington DC working in the Senate in Senator John McCain’s Office and is now working in MEP Liam Aylward's Office in Brussels until the end of December.

Then it's off to Toulouse on Erasmus until he returns home to complete his fourth year in UL.  His father, Conor O'Higgins,  retired as an inspector from the Garda College in Templemore.  He is now a course director of the Security Studies course in Ormonde College, Kilkenny His mother, Catherine O'Higgins worked as a Special Needs Assistant in the Presentation Primary School in Kilkenny.