Today is St Patrick’s Day. the day you are supposed to be happy to be Irish (or in Ireland) and grateful for the Welsh slave who converted Ireland to Christianity. But what if you don’t feel any of that? What if you just want to belong by just being you and not being part of […]
The world has changed. Nothing is as it was. There is war in Europe, we feel unsafe, social media is creating divisions that would otherwise have been just differences of opinion but now create serious and sometimes dangerous divides. I am finding it hard to make sense of everything and I also feel I have […]
My question is now, don’t you think that it is time to support people like myself, the social entrepreneurs of this country, the ones who establish the social enterprises you so like to celebrate. Are we martyrs, or are we valuable entrepreneurs who provide services that are badly needed, but of which the state had no idea they were needed or how to implement them.
So over the years, I got to know a lot of people, mostly in Cork, but further afield as well. And what I noticed, once the right to work was there, was the serious challenges in finding work for people seeking international protection, but also finding the work they were qualified for.
Sylvain is used to making his own food, he doesn’t like the food served in the hotel. There is no fridge in his room, he has no access to a kitchen, and is not allowed to have visitors. Soon the nice hotel became a true headache for Fabien. He was constantly hungry, and tried to eat what was served to him in cardboard boxes every day. But he just couldn’t eat much. And to make matters worse, every time he worked a late shift, he would come home after 10 PM, when the kitchen was closed and had no food at all.
It was Wednesday night. A month into the Pandemic. I just got a call from agent SVP, telling me the goods would be delivered on Friday. After one failed attempt, we could not afford to miss the opportunity again. I called Nicole and told her that the delivery would happen on Friday at 3 PM. […]
And then my mind went to the Direct Provision Centres, with its shared rooms, shared bathrooms, canteens, recreation areas. I tweeted about it, asking Charlie Flanagan and HSE what they were going to do about them, how will they apply social distancing in these places?
We have recently started a cricket team at the Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre. Just like our world music band, Citadel, cricket is offering refuge to many of the residents of Direct provision Centres, and we want to spread the news. It all started quite innocently with one of the young Pakistani boys asking me if […]
https://videopress.com/embed/4QT4CMND?hd=0&autoPlay=0&permalink=0&loop=0 By Roos Demol It had been on our mind for a long time. We wanted to do something special, something that at first glance looked simple and innocent, but carried a lot of importance. Norbert, at the same time, wanted to start collecting funds to keep up our work in partnership with the St […]
I feel like I keep doing the Way of the Cross in a country where I thought I would find protection and refuge for myself and my family. I am a father, I left my children behind, I am incapable of saving them and I am not even sure if I will ever be able to.
Migrants in Ireland 