Bohs and Bang Bang’s Christmas cheer for Direct Provision kids

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. For some.

Quite often at Christmas time, we find our eyes being opened more than ever to the injustices in Ireland today. Advertisements for charities on TV and radio, bucket collections, shoebox appeals, sleep-outs become more apparent, more visible. We all dig a little deeper. A perfect example of this can be seen in the recent collection by Bang Bang café in Phibsborough, who, with the help of Bohemians F.C. will be hosting a Christmas party for children living in Direct Provision at Dalymount Park this Saturday. That’s after the home dressing room was filled with donated toys and a PayPal collection reached such high levels so early on that it was temporarily shut down by the company. Almost €15,000 in total was raised outside the donated items. https://twitter.com/dlLambo/status/1203728694566674432 Speaking to SportsJOE, Bohs’ Commercial and Marketing Director and co-owner of Bang Bang Daniel Lambert said they’ve been blown away by the response to their ambitious undertaking;

“The club were involved for MASI for maybe three or four years, Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, and MASI are a representative body for people who are in Direct Provision. We work with, at Bohs at MASI, through Kevin Brannigan originally who set up this scheme to bring people to games, we've been doing that for a number of years. With Bang Bang, my own business, we've worked with MASI in highlighting issues, raising money. Last year I spoke to Lucky from MASI, and he mentioned the Direct Provision centre in Clondalkin. That's from where we've brought people to games from. Look, it's grim enough, it's (the centre) in an industrial estate, not a lot of room for kids to play. So we got 82 names of kids off him last year, and had an appeal just through the Bang Bang Facebook. The gifts came in within about 3 days, it was amazing. So I sort of said to them this year, do you want to go a bit bigger? And you know, I was thinking maybe 2 or 3 centres, but he's sent over 522 names! So we said we'd try and do that, and it looks like we're well on the way to doing it. It's hard to know how many kids is this presents for, there's definitely a few hundred here, and there's about €15,000 in the online (donations) account.”

The Refugee Council of Ireland’s Report on Children in Direct Provision lays out the tough conditions faced by approximately 1600 children in DP in Ireland, with issues ranging from no space to complete school homework to rapidly spreading illnesses due to cramped conditions, with little access to play areas and even an inability to invite friends made outside the centres into their living space. This Saturday in Dalymount Park, thanks to volunteers, a special Christmas party is being held for kids living in these conditions;

"Dalymount is not big enough just inside to cater for 500 kids and parents, so we have 220 kids and 80 parents coming here on buses from different centres across the country, and then when they arrive we're having a party for them, there's music, there's food. People have donated, Domino's Pizza are bringing a load of pizza down, different groups have really helped out, RAMSI who are another representative body for asylum seekers. So we're gonna have our coaches on the pitch doing games with the kids, food inside, music and then while they're having fun at the party, we're then going to bring the gifts to each of the buses so they can take them back for the kids that could make it and the kids that couldn't.”

All of this would not have been possible without the kindness shown by the customers of Bang Bang, with one particular donor standing out;

“Most heart-warming about it all really...coming into the shop all week, you've got parents coming in with their kids. One kid came in, I think he was 9 or 10, with his mam and he'd had his birthday party the day before, and he'd seen this, and he gave all his presents from his own birthday party. He wanted to give them over, he said that he had more than enough.”

While moments like that, and acts of generosity and kindness such as the planned party on Saturday, show some of the best that Irish people have to offer, the ongoing problem of Direct Provision is not one that can be pushed from the national conscience for any longer. Daniel emphasised that point to us;

“It's obvious but, Irish people travelled around the world for long enough and didn't have anything at all. And for people to be here, parents get less than €30 a week. You've teenagers, teenagers want things like anyone else does, or young kids... Just basic stuff. This is a lovely thing to do, but this doesn't change the fact that the situation is bleak and it shouldn't be the way it is. Hopefully this gives people a brighter Christmas, but I think as a society we need to look at what we're doing here. I think people will look back in 20 or 30 years and see this as something that's quite shameful really. What's important too is if you're speaking to... we're coming up to an election next year, and if you're speaking to TDs and Councillors, tell them you don't agree with the system. That's probably the most powerful thing people can do is speak up against it.”

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