Community Connection Project to support asylum seekers and address misinformation

Minister of State for Community Development, Integration and Charities, Joe O’Brien announced a new project this week that will support the recruitment of up to 30 Community Link Workers.

The workers will be employed by local development companies under the Community Connection Project (CCP), which will receive funding of €3m over 2024 and 2025.

• ABOVE: Minister of State Joe O’Brien was interviewed by Changing Ireland on the day he announced 30 new community worker jobs. Part of the role of the new community workers will be to correct misinformation and to counter disinformation.

The new employees will engage with local communities across Ireland over an 18-month period with a view to helping communities respond to the arrival of International Protection Applicants.

Minister O’Brien said workers will help to “build community resilience against misinformation and prejudice by working with the local community before, during and after the arrival of International Protection Applicants”.

He told Changing Ireland: “It will help skill up the local community and give the community more resilience to defend itself against disinformation and misinformation around international protection applicants in particular.

“We found that it works well at community level if people can have conversations with community workers about the facts, rather than (us) taking a top down approach.

“We’re putting community workers in there to heal division and to make communities more resilient against misinformation and disinformation. Parallel to it we’ll have a piece of research ongoing that will gather good practice, gather what’s going well, but also gather any kind of policy issues for government as well,” he said.

He said the workers will be spread across the country “because every community needs to build up their resilience and their capacity to defend itself against disinformation and misinformation. But we will be looking at where there was a particularly large number of centres opened up or where there were particularly divisive issues.”

“I know the power of community work. I know what community workers have done in Ireland to help new people settle into a community,” he said. In that context, the new project is about doing protective work in communities that were “a little bit hurt and a little bit damaged over the last two years”, he said.

The workers will liaise closely with the Community Engagement Team of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, along with other key stakeholders, including the Local Authority Integration Teams.

• ABOVE: Local development company representatives welcomed the announcement of the new Connecting Communities Project which will employ 30 community workers countrywide.

Changing Ireland sought a response from Carol Baumann, CEO of the Irish Local Development Network; Sabina Trench, CEO, South West Mayo Development Company; and Ryan Howard, CEO of South and East Cork Area Development.

While the project is only funded for 18 months, all three interviewees agreed that this is the start of something new in communicating with and listening to communities and that it may become a long-term funded programme.

Carol said: “We see this as a very positive step. Firstly, it recognises the scale of the challenge that communities up and down the country have been dealing with, so any new resources are welcome. Secondly, I think it’s an acknowledgement of the work and skills that exist in local development companies, in our network, and the work that they’ve been doing now for several decades.”

Sabina said, “Integration is something that the urban and rural companies are facing and addressing on a daily basis now across the country. The minister is recognising that and acknowledging, as Carol said, our work and our footprint in this area already.

“We’re facing into a future of new communities, that’s just the reality and we have a staff of nearly 14 people in South and West Mayo working in the area of integration. This person will add to that team enormously.

“It will also give us an opportunity to showcase our work and to address misinformation. Sometimes we’re afraid to shout from the rooftops about the really positive work that we’re doing. This lets us do that,” she added.

Ryan said: “I love the fact that it’s communications focused. I think the focus is actually really good. Local development companies and local communities have great stories to tell and need to get ahead of hateful conversations. We need to bring people into the conversation, let them be part of the story, and we’ve got to listen as well as talk, as well as share – and maybe we’ll get there.

We asked Ryan if 30 people for 18 months was enough.

“No! Take any one of our areas and put one person in there to try to deal with this communications challenge. It’s spreading fast in terms of the other side of this conversation and we really need to get ahead of this,” he said.

“On the other hand 18 months seems like the beginning of a programme. This is really a sizable start. The Minister had to go in and get that resource from somewhere and we will prove that it delivers value back to the back to the taxpayer,” he added.

Minister O’Brien also announced an additional €1m in funding for the continued delivery of social inclusion supports under SICAP to new arrivals for the remainder of 2024.

The Minister made the announcements at the Welcoming New Communities conference in Dublin Castle, which saw over 150 delegates from local development companies, the community and voluntary sector and national representative organisations attending.

Various organisations presented diverse examples of initiatives welcoming and supporting the integration of new communities, and discussed the challenges and barriers to integration efforts.

The purpose of the event was to provide opportunities for community organisations to discuss effective approaches, share best practice on tackling misinformation and to promote networking, knowledge sharing, understanding and appreciation of the variety of community based migrant integration initiatives being delivered.

“My hope for today is that, in facilitating robust discussions on those questions, pinpointing initiatives that have been highly effective and identifying barriers and blockages to better implementation, we can collectively start to form new solutions to carry impactful integration and inclusivity initiatives forward into the future,” commented Minister O’Brien during the event.

“The value of having so many stakeholders in the room truly can’t be understated, as we engage and work together to tackle the challenges and support communities in welcoming and integrating new arrivals.

Internationally renowned speaker Tim Dixon, co-founder of More in Common presented a keynote speech on the value of positive integration of new arrivals to our communities and managing concerns and conflict. There were also presentations from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Local Development Companies and Volunteer Centres delivering supports to new arrivals.

A photographic exhibition was held during the event. It was mounted by Changing Ireland in co-ordination with community groups across the country and featured dozens of stories and over a hundred photos highlighted the sector’s work with migrants and their lived experience in Irish communities.