Mr. Andreas Mokake:

I thank the committee for this invitation to speak about a unique group of people. The Spiritan Asylum Services Initiative, SPIRASI, is a national rehabilitation centre for asylum seekers and refugees with a special emphasis on victims and survivors of torture. SPIRASI has been involved with this group since 1999 and has since then been supported by the City of Dublin Education and Training Board, the Health Service Executive, the United Nations and the Spiritans or Holy Ghost Fathers who founded this project.

We focus on the rehabilitation of the whole person with psychotherapy, education and integration being our specific focus. Due to the nature of the rehabilitation process, we require teaching skills that exceed the expectations of teachers from mainstream schools. We require teachers who are comfortable teaching a mixed level group where learners have varying degrees of language and literacy needs. Key to this is an ability to create a lesson plan that suits the language and literacy needs of the learner with a special focus on living in Ireland.

Between September and June of every academic year, our four accredited Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, English classes and one volunteer-run class mean 120 learners attend SPIRASI. We also run an accredited QQI computer class and a non-accredited knitting and art class. We work mainly with a traumatised and vulnerable group of people who have gone through the difficult process of leaving their countries of origin and who now have to start learning a new language. Many of our learners have never had the opportunity to go to school or come from a background where their education was cut short because of war or persecution. We also work with educated professionals who are hoping to improve their English language ability and gain the essential skills that will help them to get their lives back on track.

It has been a unique opportunity for us to be invited to send a submission and speak about barriers to work. We mentioned financial, motivational, information, cultural and accommodation matters and in doing our work, we face many challenges. For example, there are approximately eight hours of teaching classes per week, which is not enough for this group of people. The mixed levels can lead to difficulties, as there may be people with only a little English, or there may be a class with a doctor and somebody who has never been to school. That poses a difficulty. Teachers must also deal with issues such as trauma-related problems, as our profile includes survivors of torture. We need to get teachers like Mr. Glennon in the Gallery, who has spent ten years teaching in SPIRASI and can understand the vulnerability of these people and how to support them.

We truly appreciate this opportunity and we hope we will continue to get the funding we have been getting in order to continue the work. Training should be extended to other teachers. We work with people but they must go out to the settled communities.