Director Suzanne Shanahan reflects on DukeEngage Dublin:

Can service be a way of being? From the start of our time in Dublin I tried to encourage our group to think of their immersion experiences not as a moment in the sun with a poor child; or a set of tasks to check off to-do list, but as a life style. I was hoping that each day they would discover, understand, and do whatever their community partner needed. I knew this would be a challenge. No one was going to tell them what to do or how to it. They had to figure it out.

But not even I fully understood what this would look in practice until I undertook a set of site visits about half way into our time in Dublin. During these visits I was struck–no overwhelmed–by three realities. First, the task I had outlined for students was physically, emotionally and conceptually grueling. For Duke students to work in small, under funded NGOs led by charismatic immigrants and refugees to Ireland and help them be successful in an country that was not their own was incredibly hard. I was exhausted simply going to the sites and being fully engaged for the hour or so of the visit. Second, I was genuinely proud to see the students had–in their placements–quite skillfully discerned needs and developed ingenious ways to meet these needs. I routinely heard that Duke students—unlike previous interns or volunteers—met critical needs that no one told them about. And third, in no more than a month each student had exerted a profound personal effect upon the refugees and immigrants with who they worked. The students were so fully engaged that they were often described as family. Several community partners even wept as they described the powerful impact the student had had upon them personally.

The students had not only developed a way to understand what was needed and do what was needed, they had indeed become what was needed. During these site visits the students and I recognized what this experience in Ireland had given all of us: an enduring understanding of what commitment to community service means—in Dublin, in Durham or anywhere. It is not just about what we do for our communities but how we be in our communities. One of the students had said that the experience changed her in ways that she could not begin to explain, but for which she would be forever grateful. Me too.

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In partnership with DukeEngage and the Geary Institute at University College Dublin, the Kenan Institute for Ethics placed the first group of DukeEngage Dublin students with six different non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ireland during the summer of 2008. For two months these students were immersed in the Irish experience of immigration and migration as well as the real experience of immigrants and refugees who’ve recently found themselves very far from home.

What follows are the students’ reflections at the midway point of their experience. Their thoughts speak to the ethical challenges that they encountered in their daily work. They also reveal the broader ethical dilemmas Irish NGOs and Irish society increasingly face in the wake of a historically unprecedented decade of immigration.

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Jonathan Grilli ‘09

The last five weeks of my internship with New Communities Partnership (NCP) here in Dublin have been filled with both challenges and surprises. I was initially overwhelmed by the organization’s sheer size and it has definitely taken me a while to understand the interactions between different political and ethnic players here. NCP by its very nature is a complex, structured machine; it serves as a parent organization for small ethnic minority groups in various cities throughout the country. Its belief is that there is strength in numbers and that unification of minority ethnic groups is not only important but also essential to the well being of all minorities in Ireland.

Two weeks ago I attended NCP’s Dublin Regional Forum. This monthly meeting of constituent groups helps NCP set its agenda and also facilitates interactions between different ethnic communities. What struck me about the meeting, though, was the determination that each member sitting around that table exhibited. Each person represented a different ethnic community, a different culture, and a different set of ideals. The room was filled with immigrants from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Communication was never easy, as English was not any individual member’s first language. And yet amidst the striking differences between members there was an implicit commonality: hope. Each person, for his or her own reason, had come to Ireland in search of a better life. And here I was, sitting around the table, helping make that life a reality for them. It was truly inspiring.

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Sara Huff, ‘09

I am spending part of my time in Dublin working for a newspaper called Metro Eireann, Ireland’s first and only multicultural weekly paper. The week I started my placement, the paper had just broken a story about a Muslim community worker who was denied an award because he refused to shake hands with the female presenter at the ceremony.

The man claimed it was against his Islamic faith to touch a woman who was not his wife. Apparently he had contacted the organizers of the awards days before to see if they could accommodate his request to have a male presenter, and the organizers agreed to do so. But the night of the awards, as the man scribbled notes for his acceptance speech from the audience, a different winner was called in his category. He was outraged that the award was revoked as a result of his religious beliefs.

The event sparked a debate in the immigrant community about the extent to which one should sacrifice his or her own religious or cultural beliefs in order to integrate into a new country. Some prominent Muslim leaders wrote to Metro Eireann in defense of the community worker, quoting passages from Islamic scripture that supported this view of women. Yet other Muslim leaders wrote saying that the man’s actions had no basis in the Islamic faith as practiced today and thus were inappropriate.

The editor of Metro Eireann, a Nigerian immigrant, wrote a response to the event in the following week’s issue saying that if immigrants want to be accepted into Irish society they have to respect the ideal of equality. In his opinion the Irish people would never be welcoming to immigrants who had such radically different beliefs about gender.

As a woman, I found myself offended by the man’s request for a male presenter. I was unfazed that his award had been revoked but felt he should have been informed about it beforehand. As an American, I couldn’t help but wonder how such a debate would have been settled in our country, where there are strict laws enforcing both religious freedom and gender equality.

Ireland is just beginning to grapple with the hard questions that a multicultural society poses, but unfortunately, it may not be just a matter of time before they master handling such conflicts. Even the United States, which has been lauded as being a land of immigrants, could not offer clear advice in such a difficult situation.

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Raisa Ledesma-Rodriguez, ‘10

A week after I started my service project at New Communities Partnership, I was helping a woman named Marguerite fill out a funding application just like those I had filled out a dozen times for activities at Duke. The difference was that this application was thirty pages long and was about a project I had nothing to do with and wouldn’t be a part of directly. Honestly, I didn’t see myself getting very excited.

I sat next to Marguerite staring at her first draft of the funding proposal. We worked for two days trying to find the right words to define and describe a project aimed to help the most disadvantaged migrant women in Dublin. To my surprise, it has been one of the more elevating experiences I’ve had so far.

The project offered disadvantaged migrant women a preparatory course to enter basic employment training programs already in existence. The problem of the existing employment training programs is that they assume individuals are empowered with the financial resources and self-confidence needed to pursue their interests and build their skills to enter the labor force. Disadvantaged migrant women often do not have the financial means to afford some training programs, but beyond that they lack affordable childcare, confidence, and the support of their families. For these reasons, many migrant women do not venture far from their own ethnic communities and would not be prepared to join employment training programs that already exist.

The project is a small effort addressing an enormous problem. Can it really make a difference? Can it help women in the way it aims to? I had all these questions and all these doubts and so did everyone else who worked on the application. But every hour I was with Marguerite, listening to her past efforts trying to empower women, and meeting with other New Communities Partnership workers that constantly offered advice on how to improve the application, I was filled with optimism and hope. Even if the project was not successful on a large-scale, it would help at least some women. Even if the project did not receive the funding, there would still be these people working to improve the communities that surround them. So all that was left to do was hope and try and keep trying.

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Katherine Noto, ‘09

Over my 21 years, I have attended my fair share of camps. I have spent hundreds of hours on arts and crafts, helped teenagers with every type of homework, and comforted dozens of toddlers. So when I heard that my DukeEngage placement was with the Integration of African Children (IACI) in their Social Inclusion Camp, I assumed that my prior camp experience coupled with time studying and volunteering in Western Africa would prepare me for this new service project.

My first day on the job proved that I was up for more of a challenge that I originally imagined. The IACI camp was certainly a different breed from those of my childhood—where were the organized activities? Nametags? Medical forms? The camp seemed disorganized and hectic; it also lacked the relaxed, familial atmosphere of social gatherings that I experienced in Africa.

As I watched kids streaming into the church parking lot where the camp took place, I struggled with the collision of two worlds: Most of the campers had been born in Africa and had recently moved to Ireland. In contrast, the church’s staff and attendees were primarily white. Periodically, a church worker would drive up or peer out of an office window; the surprised look on their faces mirrored my own feelings as we looked at the chaos before us. Kids ran between vehicles and swung on the bike rack (our camp’s version of a jungle gym) as fast, loud patches of conversation in Yoruba and Igbo rang out across the concrete. As the days passed, I started to adjust to the disorganization, trying to lend some structure to the program where I could. Whenever I saw an opportunity to insert my own ideas, I struggled to act—who was I, a student of neither Irish nor African background, to express my opinion? Usually I kept quiet to avoid offense or disrespect.

The founder of the IACI is a woman who has tirelessly worked on her vision since arriving in Ireland as a refugee from Nigeria. She is an incredibly extroverted and creative person who easily makes friends with everyone, European or African. It is due to her charisma that she has convinced many people in the community to help out at her camp. It was painful for me to watch these volunteers work with the IACI. Each time, they would arrive eager to help and each time, I would see their enthusiasm wilt as minutes wore on and generosity was tested. Bus drivers missed their next appointments as we departed hours late for field trips. Policemen who volunteered to lecture about their work looked uncomfortable as kids swarmed over their vehicles and pulled at their badges and weapons. A priest sat through a four-hour long talent show that included three renditions of the Soulja Boy dance, a handful Rihanna wannabes, and a whole lot of grinding and break dancing.

While these actions seemed inappropriate to me, my supervisor meant no disrespect to the volunteers and would be heartbroken to know that anyone might find the behavior of the children under her organization’s care improper. The greatest struggle for me has been to find the line between accepting cultural differences and understanding when behavior is simply inconsiderate or unsafe. As I continue to work here, my goal is to better understand this delicate balance in order to facilitate a more fruitful exchange between the Irish—both those citizens whose families have resided on the island for centuries and those immigrants who have much to share with their new country.

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Sudha Patel, ‘10

I had the pleasure of traveling to the Boyne Valley with a group of asylum-seeking women and a few of their children on a sunny day in June. The trip was organized through AkiDwA, the African women’s network where I’m working. The women truly appreciated the outing since they seldom get to leave the hostel on the meager €19 allowance they receive every week from the government. It was an unforgettable experience to be able to witness their reactions to the hour-long bus ride out to the middle of the Irish countryside.

In the Boyne Valley, we visited the historic thousand-year-old remains of a monastery called Mellifont Abbey. We also went to a ruins of an early Christian settlement called Monasterboice, where we saw three intricately carved high crosses from the tenth century.

One of the women on the trip had a small baby with her and she was reading her every bit of literature she could find relating to the sites we saw. She said to the infant, “You have to know this. This is your history now.” The thousands of asylum-seekers in Ireland are living with uncertain futures, as they are constantly dealing with the possibility of being deported. It was both heart-wrenching and heartwarming to see this woman tell her daughter that Ireland is her home, her history, with such conviction.

The most difficult experience for me was on the bus ride home. All of the women were laughing, singing songs and clapping the entire way back to Dublin. Everybody was so happy, and I found myself having to turn away to hide the tears in my eyes. These women have had phenomenally difficult lives; how could they be singing? But they did sing, and after much prodding I sang with them. “One love. One heart. Let’s get together and feel all right.” The words of Bob Marley floated into the Irish sky, and I realized that there, on that bus, the inconceivable power of the human spirit had triumphed.

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Rachel Revelle, ‘11

My summer internship is at a non-governmental organization called Spirasi, which provides health services, education, and psychotherapy for refugees and asylum seekers. By attending some of the English classes and participating in other student activities, I have had unique interactions with people from around the world.

Of particular note is a group of Middle Eastern men that pals around together, and has welcomed me openly. As an American I am asked about politics even before initial introductions are out of the way, but such direct questioning has led to deep and engaging conversations. The huge social and political dilemmas between the United States and the Middle East are condensed into one tea break or classroom exercise, in which it turns out that on an individual level we share many values and ideals.

For one, everyone is saddened by the amount of fighting that is related to religion. Another shared sentiment is the fact that radicals can have such control over a group or region, but the majority of people simply want to live a good life based on their own beliefs. The Iranian tells me that public parks in Iran are separated by gender because of strong Muslim belief, and I relate how fundamentalist Christian groups do not allow women in the ministry. Such commonalities create a bond that crosses world boundaries and social stigmas.

Sometimes those boundaries can be difficult to overcome. Staring the Iraqi man in the face as he tells me his family has been killed by Americans and he has fled to Ireland, I feel torn about representing my country that I love so dearly. I brighten, however, when he makes a touching effort to move on by saying he likes Americans in general, especially since American English is easier to understand!

The personal connections I have made with students at Spirasi give me hope for the service we are doing. Politics, international relations, terrorism, and war are difficult topics for the world to sort out, but it is always possible to reach understanding through small, personal steps. Duke students, by stretching their arms across the globe with DukeEngage, are forming an ever broadening network of understanding from which solutions to world issues will be made.

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Yifan Wang, ‘10

Mosney is the largest direct provision center in Ireland, housing up to 800 asylum seekers at one time. Individuals seeking asylum are randomly placed in one of approximately 66 direct provision centers throughout the country, with 800 out of 7000 individuals “lucky” enough to be placed in Mosney. I visited the center on a Thursday when around 100 residents were preparing to go to the Dublin Zoo. What I saw there both pleasantly surprised me and complicated my views on Ireland’s handling of asylum seekers.

Despite Mosney’s reputation as the best direct provision center in Ireland, I was still expecting the bare minimum in accommodations: bunk beds, low-nutrient foods, cramped facilities. Instead I found that while unrelated individuals often share apartments, no adult individual is forced to share a bedroom with another. The food is nutritious and in high abundance, and while some facilities such as the daycare center are oversubscribed, several buildings and rooms sit without purpose.

On the surface, Mosney is perfect because individuals have all their needs provided for while having all day everyday to lounge around. In reality, however, residents often suffer from depression and a sense of hopelessness and lack of purpose. True, they have far superior creature comforts than the average Irish beggar, but they do not have freedom of choice. They cannot work, and without work it is often difficult to find meaning in life. They cannot leave the center except on brief day excursions, and above all they lack security. Most have been waiting for years for the government to make a decision to either allow them to remain in Ireland or send them back to their country of origin. They have no idea how long that decision will take or whether it will be positive or negative.

I struggle now with reconciling basic human rights and needs with the responsibilities of government. It pains me to see 800 people walk through life in limbo, but at the same time it is unfair to demand that the Irish government do more. Social welfare in Ireland entitles an individual to approximately €185 per week. Each resident at Mosney also receives this amount, only it is paid directly to the center that supports them.

So the question becomes to what extent can we ask the government to provide more for foreign nationals than it does to its own citizens? There are ethical issues on the individual level that must be considered, but there are also issues that arise at the broader, state level. At Mosney, these two sides collide.

To complicate matters further, most direct provision centers in Ireland are not nearly as good as Mosney. Those run privately often skimp on as much as they can in order to shave costs and increase profit. Does the government have a responsibility to crack down on these centers? After all, life in these centers must be better than life where the residents came from. These are questions that I do not have the answers to, nor will I find the answers anytime soon.