People - New Horizon Athlone

Christmas Henna

It can’t be Christmas without Henna!

Gerry Callaghan 2021-01-07

Hearing the footsteps of Irish Famine refugees

An international commemoration of the journey of thousands of Irish people who emigrated during the Famine took place on Wednesday 2 December. It recalled the…

Angela 2020-11-30

Cork leads way with refugee work agency

The wealth of experience and talent in the refugee and asylum-seeker community has been recognised by an innovative venture in Cork. Led by Roos Demol,…

Angela 2020-11-30

The Forest Experience

We are planning a project with a difference! New Horizon plans to set up a forest experience for about twenty children living on the Lissywollen…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-11-16

Limerick integration project gets funding

A project to integrate refugees and asylum-seekers into local communities has won €9,000 in European Union funding. Called ReStart, it is run by the Enactus…

Angela 2020-11-16

Success story for Syrian refugee

Her mother says Suaad Aalshleh has “worked her heart out”, but it’s paid off — the 18-year-old refugee won a scholarship to study medicine, and…

Angela 2020-10-12

Palestinian refugee couple receive award

Cork has honoured Izzedeen and Eman Alkarajeh, a Palestinian couple who spent a year in direct provision. The couple share the city’s Person of the…

Angela 2020-10-05

David and Fortunate face deportation

Key community couple refused refugee status AIT Students and community volunteers facing deportation after four years in Direct Provision David and Fortunate Nesengani suffered persecution in…

Gerry Callaghan 2020-03-10

1 Comment

We are a front line refugee support group mainly working on the Lissywollen Direct Provision site in Athlone. Our focus is on providing information and help to the 300 (on average) residents living there.

We also work on the Temple Direct Provision site in Horseleap, Moate.

Everyone in the DP sites in Athlone and Temple is what is described as a ‘Convention’ refugee. People who have arrived in Ireland under a United Nations resettlement program are known as ‘Programme’ refugees.

Convention refugees are people who have made their own way to Ireland and have applied for recognition of refugee status when they arrive.

Various official and unofficial routes and methods are used to travel to Ireland. These change continually, depending on weather conditions and enforcement levels at crossings.

On arrival people are normally housed for a few weeks in Baleskin, near Dublin airport. They are then dispersed to various direct provision centres around the country.

People can get protection if they meet the conditions set out in The United Nations Convention on Protection of Refugees.

See Definition of a Refugee