Africa in the Liberties

Eimear Lowe reports

Fleeing his native Congo in terror, Bedel arrived in Ireland without any family or friends and unable to speak a word of English.

Campaign to allow asylum seekers work legally gathers pace

Within six months Bedel had learned the language, and drawing on all his experience as a lawyer, established the African Refugee Network in the heart of the Liberties.

He has since married a fellow asylum seeker and is now a proud father. Unfortunately given the current immigration policy in this country, Bedel is unable to seek work to provide for them and is forced to rely on social welfare payments.

With speculation growing that the Government is going to change legislation relating to asylum seekers, Bedel is hopeful that soon he will be able to support himself and his family without State subventions.

The African Refugee Network (ARN) has been up and running for two years. According to Bedel, he will soon need to employ an Irish person to help with the growing workload: "The main reason why we set it up was because we weren't legally able to get a job and we wanted to do something.

"We cannot take a job in this country and we don't want to sit about and do nothing. We wanted to set up an organisation which would help people like us.

"We set up English classes which means that when refugees arrive here with no English , they can come along to the class and do something about it.

"We have set ourselves up as a registered company and we work full-time on a voluntary basis. We are not getting paid, we just to help other people like us."

The response to these English classes has been overwhelming, according to Bedel, and it is not restricted to the African community: "The primary reason for setting up these classes was because we know that a lot of Africans cannot speak any English and because of this they cannot fit in to Irish society.

"Another reason for setting up the ARN was so that we could look after the affairs of Africans but over the two years we have found that it is not just Africans who come asking for help, but refugees from all over."

It was the ARN who first brought to light the attack on Congolese asylum seeker Landu Kulabutulu on Liffey Street. This type of racist attack is the menacing threat looming over the entire refugee community. Unfortunately both Bedel and fellow ARN worker John have experienced racial abuse of one kind or another.

Bedel claims that he compiled a file of similar attacks in the Liberties area and handed it over to Gardai for inspection. This is a claim which has been denied by local Gardai: "We investigate all claims of attacks but we don't categorise them according to race..... To my knowledge there is no problem with racial attacks in the Dublin area," said a Garda spokesperson.

Ireland is by no means the land of milk and honey for asylum seekers, as Bedel and John can testify. According to Labour’s Joan Burton, in most cases it is only a stop-off point for refugees on their way to other countries such as the US and Canada.

For Bedel, coming to Ireland has brought him a lot of happiness but also a lot of frustration at the way he feels the system is stacked against him: "I know that many Irish people say that the refugees are coming here to find a better life but all I can say is that people are coming here because they are desperate.

"People have to leave their own country for serious reasons. It's not that they choose to come to Ireland. It's just that they don't have a choice. You leave your country without knowing where you will end up."

-Etain McGuckian