Hope & Ambition Phase 1

Aims and outcomes

Glencree’s involvement in the Hope & Ambition Project centred on our work with women asylum seekers living in a Direct Provision Centre in Clondalkin, Dublin. The aims of the work included relationship building, emotional support and building connections that facilitate inclusion and integration. 

From the start, the relationship with Mount Street Club Trust felt completely different to a traditional funding arrangement. The model of trust-based philanthropy provided support in a holistic way to both practitioners and our organizations. We experienced interest without micromanagement, encouragement without pressure, and a deep assessment of the value of the work beyond predetermined measurable outcomes. Our Project Lead, Louise Keating, felt free to meet needs where they seemed most acute rather than worrying about the “numbers” in a superficial way. This focus on needs, alongside the encouragement to engage in reflection on the work and the process of accompanying refugees, proved to be a much more satisfying experience. 

In 2021, isolation and mental health came to the fore due to covid-19. We offered additional emotional support to the women we were supporting through monthly online wellness sessions. Using just mobile phones, twenty-eight women participated over twelve sessions. We practiced exercises for relaxation and shared information about trauma and strategies to cope with stressful situations. We spoke about bereavement due to violent conflict and illnesses and being unable to attend funerals in Ireland or overseas. Online working proved unexpectedly successful and key to maintaining relationships.

Our original contract with Mount Street Club Trust recognised “‘space’ as being vital to creating friendships, connections, networks, accessing support” to counteract “segregation by default”. When indoor meetings of the women’s group were no longer possible, we had to change our approach. Louise, volunteer Maureen O’Riordain and close collaborator Marie Williams (Young Mother’s Network) sat on a wall in Clondalkin to talk things through and the idea of outdoor nature-based activities emerged. As an antidote to the extreme confinement and isolation of the pandemic, we ran the following activities:

• Four picnics in Corkagh Park (20 women and 33 children)

• A Nature and Creativity event held at Glencree (14 women)

• Christmas gifts of scarves with an invitation to connect with us were distributed to all women living in Clondalkin Towers (82 women)

• Three Coffee & Tai Chi mornings at café garden in Clondalkin (21 women)

• A trip to An Tairseach Organic Farm in Wicklow (6 women).

Challenges, evolution and insights

The security of three-year funding allowed for the slow build-up of trust and helped us stay in touch with what was happening in people’s lives. Changes in legislation allowing access to employment was very positive but made life difficult in other ways. Many women living in direct provision juggle childcare with zero hours shift-work and have no regular day off, making it difficult to connect with them. Long hours and multiple daily bus journeys lead to exhaustion and depression as they go from bed to work without sufficient time to rest and recharge. For example, when we went on the trip to the farm in Wicklow, two of the women came straight off night shifts in nursing homes rather than miss the opportunity to go somewhere different. When they heard we were near the ocean, they insisted we go to see it. Some women had been up to two years in Ireland and had scarcely been out of Clondalkin. When we took the bus trip to Glencree the women spoke of the incredible sense of freedom they felt. It was shocking for us to discover that women who had been living in the centre for over three years had never visited the wonderful amenity of Corkagh Park, so close by. 

“The security of three-year funding allowed for the slow build-up of trust and helped us stay in touch with what was happening in people’s lives.”

Initially we encountered some challenges around the picnics. By walking to the playground together as a group, the twenty-minute journey was more feasible with babies and toddlers, even if it was raining. For many in the group, good parenting was associated with keeping children safe and clean: allowing them to get dirty in a sandpit or play with water that might make them sick led to conversations about childhood development. Giving women ‘picnic packs’ containing buckets and spades and waterproof blankets provided the option for them to go to the park on their own. We could not have anticipated any of this at the start of the project.

A ripple effect of support

The support that we have received through the CEOs and Practitioners Clubs, conversations with the Trustees and exchanges with the other recipients have been of great benefit in a number of different ways. The care shown for CEOs and practitioners has had a ripple effect on care for those we work with. Having a safe space to discuss issues and share ideas with workers in similar roles has been a wonderful resource, as have been the insights we gained into the experience of poverty, inequality, and discrimination across different communities and the effect of political choices on the capacity of disadvantaged groups to meet their basic needs. We have also appreciated the engagement of the Trustees with the project and opportunities to get to know one another as people. The support and connection provided, as well as the sense of being valued as a person and having our work valued by others, has raised our morale over the three years of Hope & Ambition and has led us to an even stronger place from which to build the next stage of our project.