Club Welcome plaque presentation award
The presentation of Club Welcome plaques to conclude our Club Welcome Refugees programme will take place next Tuesday with Minister of State David Stanton TD presenting a plaque of appreciation to five sports clubs.
Pictured: participants in the Show Racism the Red Card Club Welcome programme activities at Booth Road Celtic FC, Ballaghaderreen GAA club and Sligo Rovers FC
The pilot of this programme was completed during 2016-2017 and is in recognition that sport has a big role to play in promoting integration. The five clubs receiving awards have carried out a programme of sustained work which will contribute to integration of refugees within Ireland.
The programme was supported by the Community Foundation and the Ireland Funds and ran between 2016 and 2017. Thanks to support from the St Stephens Green Trust, we will be continuing this pilot programme and develop it as well as increase the number of clubs involved. We will be putting out a call for involvement in the 2018 programme shortly.
The Club Welcome awards are being presented at 12: 30pm, Tuesday 23rd January 2018 in the Carmichael Centre, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7
The five clubs are: Booth Road Celtic FC, Dublin 22, Ballinacurra Gaels GAA club, Limerick, Ballaghaderreen GAA club Roscommon, Emo Celtic, Co Laois and Sligo Rovers.
-Sligo Rovers delivered coaching sessions freely accessible to residents in Globe House, once a week over 20 weeks. Sligo Rovers not only offered training sessions for residents of Globe house but we also organised fully qualified coaches and also organised friendlies for the residents of Globe House against local grass root clubs in Sligo.
-Booth Road Celtic Football Club hosted an open coaching evening with the FAI inviting residents from the Towers Accommodation Centre and also engaged with residents of the accommodation centre to identify and accommodate access for children in the centre to participate at different levels of the club including the club academy on Saturday mornings for children aged 4-7 and under 8’s to under 14s schoolboy teams.
-Emo FC have provided free access to their all- weather facilities to residents in Montague House and also made a policy decision to allow free membership to their club to children of asylum seekers, in recognition of financial barriers.
-Ballinacurra Gaels GAA club in Limerick engaged with local support agency Doras Luimni and have organised ‘Have a Go’ days specifically with children of asylum seekers and refugees.
-Ballaghaderreen organised a club blitz involving some Syrian refugees (pictured above) and also a trip to Croke Park for the All- Ireland final between Roscommon and Mayo. The club now has Syrian refugees training with the Under 18’s football team.
Media Coverage Report
Ballaghaderreen FC are currently running opening training evenings for Under 14 &16 boys once a week. This is in it’s 9th week and hopefully will continue depending on funding which covers the running cost of the club. Currently all our club players pay a small fee to attend each week.
Galway GAA Club Welcomes Refugees
Gael na Gaillimh ‘Team Together’ July 14th 2018 Report
Gael na Gaillimh GAA club in Galway City held a ‘Team Together’ event on July 14th 2018. This event was supported by Show Racism the Red Card and involved an open day, where members of our community were invited to come and learn the basic skills and have some fun. The ultimate aim was to promote awareness about the club and promote our inclusive ethos, letting all community members know they were welcome to join.
Specific effort was made in advance to link with socially excluded groups in our community. Namely, those living in direct provision. In order to achieve this, we linked with local initiatives such as ‘Walk the Talk’ a local group aiming to promote social integration of asylum seekers through sport, as well as the University of Sanctuary and ‘Fáilte Refugees’ local groups. Collaboration was also made with Amach, the Galway LGBT volunteer run organisation which represents and advocates on behalf of the LGBTI+ community in Galway city and county. The event was hosted in partnership with Amach and Gael na Gaillimh.
The event itself was a great success. 30 individuals attended which included existing members from Gael na Gaillimh’s women and men’s teams, and many new people from all over the world, including residents from two direct provision centres in Gawlay city. The day began with an introduction to the basic skills of Gaelic football and was followed by a mini tournament. A social event was held in the evening and catering was provided by One World Tapestry, a non-profit organization which aims to create a space for people to come together through food and experience an inclusive community while working with asylum seekers to help them use their own skills through volunteering.
Overall, this partnership are encouraged that this has been a good first step to promote inclusion and invite new members to our club. Moving forward, we will maintain these links and open communication to hopefully encourage people to continue playing with us and invite new members in the future also. We are very grateful for the support of Show Racism the Red Card, without whom, this event would not have happened.
SRTRC are engaging clubs around the country as part of our Club Welcome Refugees programme, which is supported by St Stephen’s Green Trust. Currently we have 8 clubs who have registered to participate and some of them have already delivered their activities. We will be posting reports updating on progress of implementation of this programme
For more information- http://theredcard.ie/clubwelcome/