The monthly winners that make up the shortlist for the Cork Person of the Year awards is, as these things so often tend to be, a typically eclectic gathering of people from all walks of life.

There's the high profile nominations in Munster and Ireland rugby star Ronan O'Gara, the conquering explorers Pat Falvey & Dr Clare O'Leary and popular local singer and songwriter John Spilane. And then there is the comparatively low-key monthly winners, those who's work within their respective local communities fails to make the headlines, but is nevertheless greatly appreciated by those to whom they serve.

This month's winner would fall into the latter category. However, there is a slight difference - what separates her from the others is the community in which she carries out her work. Eleanor O'Sullivan, a 27 year old social worker from Ballymakeera, Macroom, has, for the past number of years, been making the considerable trek to Calcutta where she undertakes work in orphanages with disadvantaged children.

She's done so at her own expense, continuously fundraising while back in her native Ireland, preparing for an eventual return. Hiring a lorry in India, she deals directly with those in need. Her considerable efforts have yielded impressive results, with Eleanor having supplied the orphanage with children's clothes, school uniforms, bedding, TV's and their very first washing machine. This year alone, she provided clothes for 600 children, with €3,000 that she raised herself.

Not that you would ever hear Eleanor talking up her deeds – in fact, when the Cork Independent phoned to ask whether she would be interested in speaking with the paper about her recent accolade, she was more then just a little hesitant, downplaying her charitable work and insisting to this journalist that there are plenty of others far more deserving of the award and the subsequent praise that comes with the territory. "What I do is only a drop in the ocean," she says. The full usage of my persuasive powers are required to change her mind.

Uncomfortable in the spotlight, though she may be, Eleanor is nevertheless engaging, particularly when broached on the subject of Calcutta and the resounding joy to be had in returning to both the orphanage and the children she does so much to help that inhabit it.

Although she may flinch at the suggestion of any such notion, all evidence would seem to suggest that helping people is intrinsically in Eleanor's nature. A Social Studies graduate, the Cork native works with Don Bosco, a teenage care housing association based in North Dublin, which provides care for disadvantaged boys between the ages of 12 and 23, who are at a risk of becoming homeless. "It might sound silly to say now, but the Concern adverts on TV really had a big effect on me when I was 10 years old. I took up social studies in Athlone, with a view to helping under privileged kids. From there I became involved in residential care with Don Bosco.

"The experience," she says, "was eye opening for me. It showed me just how sheltered my own life had really been. While I was there I met kids who were just five or six and who had been literally left to fend for themselves."

Eleanor, who is still involved with Don Bosco on a part-time basis, while also undertaking studies in journalism ("I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie and I'd love to be a war reporter eventually," she confesses), took her first trip to Calcutta when she was 21. Looking back now she says she can understand how people though the idea was crazy. "I just decided I would go there on my own and see what happens. So I hopped on a plane and left. Most people thought at the time I was mad to do so. I worked with the Mother Teresa Sisters when I got there, but only stayed with them for two weeks. I'm an affectionate person by nature, but the sisters didn't believe in it. They warned against it in case you were to get attached to the children. So if a child cried you couldn't hug them. I didn't believe in that."