Breaffy project is first of its kind globally
Pictured at the launch of the BeeCon project were, from left: founder Natasha Beegan with sponsors, Ian McDonagh (MacAuliffes Total Health Pharmacy), Doreen Mulroy (Multi-Color Corporation) and Enda O'Brien (O'Brien & Sons Builders). Picture: Trish Forde
A new initiative, that has to potential to save lives, was launched at the Breaffy House Hotel on Sunday.
‘The BeeCon Project’ is a reusable, scalable, community-led initiative to help communities locally, nationally and internationally deliver lifesaving equipment in their area. It is a blueprint for communities to source and secure sponsorship from local businesses in order to deliver solar or wind-powered cabinets with defibrillators and all auxiliary assets to any area with no overhead to the community.
The BeeCon Project was founded by Natasha Beegan Connolly, who is based in Breaffy, Castlebar.
“What started as a small idea to source and pay for a defibrillator in our community in Breaffy quickly led to this massive undertaking,” Ms Beegan Connolly said.
Research undertaken by Natasha shows that having a defibrillator on site within two minutes meant up to an 80% chance of survival and that for every minute that passes, the chances of a person surviving a cardiac arrest are reduced by 7 to 10%.
Natasha has been a remote worker for 15 years and as a rural advocate also learned from research that over 33% of Ireland is considered rural and when it comes to Emergency Medical Response (EMS) times in eight minutes or less, rural areas faired out poorer at just 9% compared to urban areas at 33%.
“Neither are good figures, but we want to be the change agents to that negative narrative,” she said.
Natasha sourced sponsorship for the solar-powered cabinet and defibrillator from MacAuliffe’s Total Health Pharmacy in Castlebar, the excavation and installation of the steel pole was completed by Seamus O’Brien and Sons Ltd, the signage for the pole was sponsored by Multi-Coloured Corporation (MCC) and the solar-powered light for the pole was sponsored by CT Electric. Each business was happier than the next to be involved and play such a vital role in supporting life-changing equipment locally.
Natasha then went about wrapping all of the reusable assets that she created as part of the project in a bow and created a repository where anyone can access and repeat this initiative.
The BeeCon Project prides itself on innovation as it is the very first solar-powered cabinet with a defibrillator on a road, globally. It is the first blueprint to be created and democratised to ensure other communities, anywhere in the world, can follow suit.
Founder of Eco Powered Cabinets (EPC), Darren Forde, said his firm is delighted and honoured to be part of this first-ever Community BeeCon Project.
“This community project is the first of its kind and the template can be used all over the globe in different languages. From EPC’s point of view, it is so important to demonstrate how communities can work together to design, develop, fund (through sponsorship) and deliver a local product to a global audience,” Mr Forde said.
