Richard Hogan: We must support displaced Ukrainians, especially the children

Richard Hogan: The vast majority of displaced Ukrainians coming into Ireland are women and children.

There is nothing more exciting than a blank page. The endless opportunity to articulate the chaos of the inner world. The potential to reach down into the rag and bone shop of the heart and from the depths of the human condition, discover a truth. I love teaching English, sharing the ideas of poets and writers with eager young minds has always brought me joy. I love personal writing classes too, because you get to hear the idealism and passion of the teenage soul. Their world is unvarnished and bare. 

Recently in one of my essay writing classes, I asked the students to recall an important moment from their childhood. It’s an exercise in personal writing and reflection. At first, the students are a little guarded but eventually, they get into it and let themselves go. As one student read his early memory, he recalled a time when he arrived to Ireland as an immigrant. No English. He couldn’t comprehend what the other students were saying so his voice fell silent. For months, he said nothing. He delineated a very solitary time of isolation and silence. The class was engrossed as he illuminated a difficult early moment in his formation.

 But then, as the memory progressed, he recalled how a girl arrived into his class who spoke his native language and all of a sudden he was speaking again. She also had great English and started to teach him how to speak it. Her arrival marked the end of his loneliness. She gave him a truly remarkable gift, his voice back. It was a beautiful moment in a class assignment. The students started clapping spontaneously.

But that moment is not unique to that student. Many children who come to our shores arrive unable to speak English. And they, too, like the boy in that story fall silent. They are isolated and alone. I started to think about all the young children arriving into this country from Ukraine. It is vitally important as they assimilate to this new world that we provide them with the care they will require. Of course, the immediate requirement is food and shelter but we have to make sure in our desire to house displaced Ukrainians that we put their safety as paramount because there are terrible people out there waiting to take advantage of vulnerable young women and children. 

And the vast majority of displaced Ukrainians coming into Ireland are woman and children. We have seen, too many times in history, people fleeing for their lives only to meet heinous people looking to make profit from their misery. 

We have to ensure that vetting systems are in place and that there is a system of checking on host families. We have to be proactive here. We don’t want to turn around after this conflict is over, shameful because Ireland failed those it took in. We must have a robust system in place to protect those we house. We don’t want a litany of failures and for those vulnerable people we housed to experience Ireland as just another place that took advantage of them.

The needs of those coming into Ireland are many. Food and shelter is obviously the most immediate. But those people fleeing the war have, more than likely, experienced some truly terrible scenes before they left their homeland. And that must be taken into consideration when we are planning how to facilitate their needs. We need services available for those people coming into Ireland. They must be able to access a service if they require it. Translators are going to be needed also. The Government has a huge task ahead of it to ensure that those we take in are supported fully. That’s on the macro level, on the micro-level we can all do our bit to make those arriving into our community feel a part of it. 

But we must also ensure that those been supported in the community are also protected from those in the community who would do them harm. We have a duty of care to make sure that those coming into our community are safe. A Garda vetting system should be in place for any family generous enough to house those currently displaced from Ukraine. This seems of paramount importance. And a system of checking on families to make sure host families are performing their duty of care is also vitally important.

It would be truly wonderful at the end of this terrible ordeal that those whom we welcomed into our community leave with a warm memory of Ireland and its people. That somewhere down the line in a Ukrainian classroom, when one of those children recall a memory of their time in Ireland, it is full of joy.