Press Release: Irish youth and young asylum seekers are ship-mates on the high seas!

Irish youth and young asylum seekers are ship-mates on the high seas

Amidst the on-going refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, an Irish charitable enterprise is busy producing good news from the high seas. A sailing training programme, run by not-for-profit group Safe Haven Voyages, is giving children seeking asylum in Ireland, along with young Irish people, the opportunity to learn the ropes first-hand. The programme fills the vacuum left when the training ship Asgard II sank (with no casualties) in 2008. However, its intentions are as humanitarian as they are nautical.

During its week-long trips, young migrants and Irish children integrate both as shipmates and friends aboard the Spirit of Oysterhaven, Ireland's largest sail training vessel.  Its maiden voyage, from July 20-24 this year, was manned by children from inner city Sligo and members of Ireland’s new migrant community, from Ghana, Kenya, Malaysia and Zimbabwe. The young people sailed from Sligo to Galway, covering 200 nautical miles over five days. The initial voyage was a huge success and immediately prompted a second trip which ran from 5-9th August, sailing from the city of Limerick to Bantry in West Cork. A third trip is now the offing, from Glandore in Co Cork to Cork city. This will take place from August 24th to 28th. All participants aboard will be Irish nationals and young people seeking asylum who are resident in a Direct Provision centre in Cork City.

Samantha Arnold of Safe Haven Voyages says: “Integration is so important in modern Ireland - sail training is an ideal way to foster bonds between communities. Participants on board are thrown into an unfamiliar and exciting environment and leave the voyage having gained new skills. We usually see evidence of a heightened sense of self-esteem, team-working skills and very often a new found love for the sea, the coastal environment and sailing.”

The young people involved in the second voyage have launched a fundraising campaign on Fundit.ie which closes this Sunday, August 16. Their aim is to create a video raising awareness of the crisis of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. You can support them here:http://fundit.ie/project/funders/safe-haven-voyages

Coverage of the pilot week (UTV Ireland) here: http://utv.ie/News/2015/07/28/Resilient-youth-group-overcome-sailing-challenge-41960

Cork young people sought!

The kind folks at Sail Training Ireland have heard about our work and offered us places on one of their voyages for three lucky Safe Haven Voyages participants!  The voyage is at the end of August, from Glandore to Cork city.

Of course we immediately said yes... We will be working with local migrant charity NASC in Cork to select the young people in question. All will be resident in Direct Provision in Cork.

Voyage two is still underway, and the fundraising for their media project continues, a little behind target - http://fundit.ie/project/safe-haven-voyages

Let's hope for fair winds as we continue to expand our operations!

Full sail ahead for Voyage Two!

Midway through our inaugural voyage from Sligo to Galway, which ran from 20-24th July 2015, we were contacted by the Irish Refugee Council who had been inundated with requests from social workers wanting to recommend young people in care to our programme - after we put out a shout-out to fill our last spots on Voyage One. The Refugee Council wondered whether perhaps we would consider running a second week this Summer...?  

We considered...and said yes! We loved their idea - to tie in an educational angle regarding the recent increase in migrant deaths at sea in European waters and to create a video focusing on this issue. In the words of the group: The young people wanted to find a way to show their solidarity with those seeking a safe haven from the perspective of young people who were already lucky enough to have done so. 

The project is outlined in detail here. Now, obviously, we didn't have much time to fundraise for week two while we were at sea running week one! But the Spirit of Oysterhaven Trust, our sail training provider, has very kindly taken a leap of faith and agreed to run the second week for us on trust - cash not in hand! So we are scrambling into action for a very worthy cause. Worthy because in addition to meeting the Safe Haven Voyages key aim of integration (all voyages contain a mixture of Irish national young people and those from migrant communities) this particular voyage will have participants who are separated children living in care, that is, young people who fled their countries of origin and arrived in Ireland to seek asylum under the age of 18, alone, separated from their families. This is a particularly vulnerable group of young people within the asylum seeking community. We are excited to be sharing this opportunity with them as we embark under full sail for Voyage Two - see the Events page for further details!

SafeHaven Voyages in the Sligo Today News

Check out this news piece by http://www.sligotoday.ie connecting the http://www.fleadhcheoil.ie with the year celebrating http://yeats2015.com all on board the https://www.spiritofoysterhavensailing.ie with the non-for-profit organisation https://safehavenvoyages.squarespace.com bring ten https://www.foroige.ie/express-your-interest youth together for a sailing experience of a lifetime. Please read and share. http://www.sligotoday.ie/details.php?id=37289&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Inaugural group photos

Inaugural group photos

The 10 young people coming together to become the crew of a vessel and navigate their way along the beautiful Irish coastline. A key focus of the project is inclusion: all voyages involve young people from Ireland's new communities together with Irish-born young people who have not experienced sailing before.