Age is certainly no barrier, if you are determined to do what you are passionate about. But, someone in her 90s and still volunteering for what she loves, certainly makes us sit up and take notice.
Meet Irma Dallarmellina from Italy, who at the ripe old age of 93, suddenly decided to become a volunteer for extending a helping hand to a Kenyan orphanage. So determined was she, that she traveled all the way from her small town of Noventa Vicentina in Veneto, Italy to Kenya.
It is thanks to Elisa Coltro, Irma’s granddaughter, who brought her grandma’s feat to the world. She considers Irma a fighter all the way, who had endured a life of poverty and sacrifices.
Says Coltro, “My grandmother Irma was widowed at the age of 26, she lost her husband in the war. In the same year she also lost a three-year-old daughter. She spent the rest of her life working hard, day and night to raise the other two children, my mother and my uncle.”
Irma became aware of the Kenyan orphanage through Father Remigio, a Paudan missionary, who was actively involved in helping children in Kenya. She regularly contributed for his missionary work in Kenya, she longed to visit Kenya some day for assisting him in his work.
Once she heard that Father Remigio was hospitalized, her dream of visiting him, which had remained bottled up inside her for years, suddenly took wings. She resolved to visit him andall the places he had built during his lifetime, such as hospitals, orphanages and kindergartens.
Irma’s initiative was given wide publicity on the social media by Coltro. The pictures she put on Facebook of Irma giving a helping hand at the local orphanage, Nord-kinangop hospital, Caren Dimesse sisters, Ongata-Rongai and FatimaHospital in Kenya were flooded with hundreds of comments.
Irma is a living proof that age is really no barrier, if you want to achieve anything in life.