DUKEENGAGE DUBLIN & LETTERS HOME

DukeEngage Dublin is a collaboration between the Kenan Institute for Ethics, DukeEngage, and more than a half dozen community based organizations in Ireland grappling with migrant and refugee issues. Each summer eight students spend eight weeks in one of the most dynamic and increasingly diverse cities in Europe.

Students are placed in small organizations that work on a range of issues: direct service, such as working with unaccompanied minor refugees as they transition to a life in Ireland; community organizing and creating the infrastructure necessary to support the successful integration of migrant and refugees into Irish society; or advocacy and policy making.

Wherever they are placed, the goal for students is not simply to participate but to undertake projects that could simply not have happened without their leadership, energy, and insight. Students deploy their skills in ways they never could have anticipated and expand their sense of the possible in ways only their fellow participants will ever fully understand.

The results are often extraordinary: students come to understand both the ethical challenges of global migration and the often profound impediments to sustainable community-based change, all while having more fun than they ever could have imagined. Read the students' letters home below.