About New Horizon

We have a pretty standard voluntary organisation structure of chair, secretary and treasurer. These are elected at an AGM each year. We plan on holding a committee meeting once a month to plan and coordinate activities. Each Wednesday we hold a drop-in clinic on the Direct Provision site. This deals with health, education, housing and family support issues. Volunteers tend to create their own roles taking into account their previous skills and experiences. These may not correspond too well with the official structure but do definitely work.

The New Horizon constitution says:

  • To Welcome and support people who seek refuge in our midst
  • To Give information and support as necessary
  • To Celebrate the riches the newcomers bring to this society

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.

New Horizon does not have any full time staff which is the major cost for many organisations.  In 2018 our working budget was €5000.00.

It is funded by small scale grants from Westmeath Community Development Ltd.

Individual projects are  funded from various sources such as the Health Service Executive (HSE) and St. Stephen’s Green Trust.

We are very pleased to announce that New Horizon has now been registered as a charity.

See the Charity Regulators website

New Horizon is not in the business of selling, renting or trading email lists with companies and businesses for marketing purposes.

We are not a government-supported organisation and maintain strict confidentiality in all our dealings with refugees, asylum seekers, volunteers and other support groups.

We do need some information to be able to do our support work. Our Privacy Policy provides lots of detailed information on when and why we collect your personal information, how we use it, the limited conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure. You can find it here.