Mentoring for migrants

A mentoring programme has been set up for secondary school students from migrant backgrounds.

Created by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, the scheme will see volunteers, aged between 18 to 30 and from migrant backgrounds, trained as ambassadors, who will be paired with participating secondary schools.

They will be available to provide informal advice, guidance and support to students from migrant backgrounds to encourage them to do well both in an academic and a social context.

Dr Fidèle Mutwarasibo, integration manager with ICI, said the scheme aimed to help teenagers from migrant backgrounds overcome obstacles to their personal, social and academic development.

“Teenagers who move to live in Ireland find themselves in a strange country and an unfamiliar education system, so it may take them some time to adapt and begin to integrate and make friends,” he said. “They can suffer from a sense of dislocation and a lack of role models in their new lives.”

Dr Mutwarasibo said even second-generation migrants faced a range of barriers that prevented them from reaching their potential.

The ICI said young migrants found it difficult to find role models to aspire to be like, as people from migrant backgrounds continued to be under-represented in politics, business, sport, and the arts.

“All our volunteer ambassadors are high achievers themselves — although still only in their late teens or 20s, they have done well academically, socially and in their chosen careers. They have also gone through the Irish education system — so they are fully aware of the challenges that students from migrant backgrounds can face,” he said.