Athlone's refugee support service seeking new volunteers

More than two decades have passed since the opening of Athlone's direct provision accommodation centre prompted some locals to come together and set up what became New Horizon Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support.

The chairperson of the voluntary organisation, Gerry Callaghan, explained that it started out by organising goalposts and painting hopscotch patterns for the children living at the centre in Lissywollen.

In the intervening years, New Horizon has gone on to develop a variety of programmes and initiatives to assist refugees and asylum seekers as they make the transition to life in the Irish Midlands.

This year, the arrival of a significant numbers of Ukrainian nationals, coupled with an increase in non-Ukrainian asylum seekers (formally known as international protection applicants) has heightened the demand for its services.

Gerry explained that New Horizon was recently awarded State funding for its first-ever paid worker, and that there was also an acute need for more volunteers to assist with its work.

At the beginning of this year, it had been providing its services for a population of around 300 people who were living in the Lissywollen centre, the direct provision centre at the former Temple Spa in Horseleap, and in a small centre in Banagher.

"The world then changed very quickly in February," said Gerry. People fleeing the war in Ukraine began arriving locally, initially in the Creggan Court Hotel, and then in other accommodation centres in the Athlone area.

A new direct provision facility for 95 international protection applicants came into use in May, at apartments that were previously occupied by students at Kilmacaugh Avenue and Daly's Apartments in Willow Park.

Tented accommodation was then put in place in Lissywollen at the end of the summer, which resulted in the addition of a further 174 male residents at the site.

"Right now the number of forcibly displaced people living in the Athlone area is about 1,400. It has gone up by at least 1,000," said Gerry.

Outlining some of the initiatives New Horizon has been working on in recent years, he said one of them was a 'forest experience' in which around 20 children are brought to the woods on a weekend morning to spend time playing in and enjoying the natural world.

"We've done work with teenagers where we've taken them to Birr Outdoor Adventure Centre. We did a project with the Galway Community Circus, where we ran circus skills training workshops and did a circus performance for World Refugee Day at the end of June.

"We also did a lovely project of collecting stories, which was called Tales My Granny Told Me," he said.

After the arrival of Ukrainian nationals this year, New Horizon began setting up English classes, and one of its volunteers has also been running an arts project in Abbey Road Artists' Studios.

The awarding of funding for New Horizon's first paid worker is a landmark development. The position will be advertised imminently and will be for an 11-month period.

Gerry said volunteers with a variety of skills would also be very welcome.

"Really, as long as you're a sound person, it doesn't matter what class of qualifications you have," he said.

"Right now, I could do with an administrator. I could do with somebody who would manage projects. I could do with a webmaster. I could do with a whole lot of things that I'm doing very badly myself!"

When the direct provision system was first introduced, in 2000, it was devised as a short-term measure.

"One of the things you learn in Ireland is that if there's anything that is labelled as temporary, it will last forever," said Gerry. "Permanent arrangements can disappear very quickly, but temporary ones are there forever!"

He concluded by paying tribute to the management and staff of the accommodation centres in the Athlone area and to local communities, who, he said, had been very supportive.

"It's been interesting just how good the support is," he commented.

* If you are interested in volunteering with New Horizon, you can contact Gerry Callaghan at: info@newhorizonathlone.org