Our work continues with 4 English classes catering for approximately 90 students weekly. We have established a teenage youth club and support contemporary dance classes for all ages.
We continue to support the Ukrainian community and our ambition for the future is to build more capacity within the Ukrainian community to self support and advocate. We have recently given assistance to 4 Ukrainian Refugees who would like to work in community development to access a level 6 Certificate in Community Development.
We have helped Ukrainians, including those living with host families to meet and integrate with the broader Ukrainian community housed in our town and with the local community. A pillar of this has been our 'Talking Club' where Ukrainain's and locals meet for 2 hours each week for tea and a chat. We currently have over 60 weekly learners.
We also provide twice weekly yoga classes and regular activities for adults and children. All of these help integrate Ukrainians to our town by meeting and befriending locals from the town and others from Ukraine living in our community.
We continue to support new families and their hosts as they are housed in pledged housing and with host families. Our 'talking club' now has 70 students including those from IPAS centres. This is tremendously successful both for integration with Irish community and with broader Ukrainian community. We facilitate social activities for children enabling them to build new friendships and feel more connected with wider Ukrainian community.
Lots going on this week - conversational English classes, yoga and music workshops continue.
And this week we the local Rock-n-Roll dance group start a series of 4 weekly classes to get us all moving and having fun!
We have a WhatsApp group to share information with host families and their guests of services and supports available to them. This network is also used by host families to get advise or support on their specific needs.
Our group initially offer a friendly welcome and orientation to our town. We support new arrivals to access social welfare and accompany them to Intreo when needed. We assist them with their medical card application and with securing a GP. We help secure school places for school children.
Once they are ready to look for work, we assist them with connecting with local business community and help them understand their entitlements and how full or part-time work impacts on them.
We offer informal English classes for adults and will offer after school club for children once garda vetting process is complete. We offer translating services with all the services as needed.
We have a befriending service so each Ukrainian family has a connect with the local community and someone to tailor the supports to that families needs.
We advocate with all service providers to meet the needs of the refugees.
