New to the Parish: ‘In direct provision, many times I wanted to give up’

Life in direct provision is a waiting game. Every single day you check the post for that brown envelope. Esther Camara from Guinea waited six years for hers.

“People in direct provision wake up every day thinking they’re going to be deported. They feel no matter what investment they put into school or voluntary work, it’s all going to be wasted.”

She arrived in Ireland with her younger brother when she was 17. They left Guinea because they feared for their safety at home, but she is uncomfortable talking about her life before she moved to Ireland. Travelling thousands of miles to begin a life in an unfamiliar country forced the teenager to grow up quickly.

Arriving in Dublin Airport in June 2008 felt completely unreal to the young, vulnerable siblings. “I was really scared. You can’t believe what’s happening. It’s not something that you plan, it just happened because of the circumstances.”

After they were questioned through French, Camara and her brother were separated and brought to different hostels for unaccompanied minors seeking asylum. Camara was brought to a girls' centre in Phibsborough and soon after began fourth year at a secondary school in Dublin.

She spoke Mandinka and French in Guinea but never paid much attention to learning English. "I had never heard of Ireland. Back home, when people ask you where do you want to go when you finish university, the three top places are America, France and Canada.

"When I went to the hostel, even though my roommate spoke French, it wasn't that good. Most of the girls were either from Ghana, Nigeria or Cameroon, so it was all English. When you couldn't speak, you felt left out, so it pushed me to learn."

School was also challenging. “I used to cry all the time. When my friends would ask what was going on, I couldn’t open up and say, ‘This is what I’m running from.’ You just sit down and start crying. It hits you. There’s no warning.”

Conversion

Two months after arriving in Ireland, a Congolese roommate invited her to come to church. Even though she had Christian friends back in Guinea, she was brought up Muslim and knew very little about Christian religions. After a couple of conversations with the church’s pastor, she decided to convert to Christianity.

“That was a joyful moment. [The pastor] asked me, ‘Do you want to give your life to Christ?’ and I was like ‘Yes’, there wasn’t even a hesitation. I went back home but I didn’t know how to pray because all I knew were the five prayers as a Muslim.

“People always ask ‘Why Ireland?’ and I say, ‘God made a way for me to come here and for me to be who I am today’. It gave me hope. If I didn’t believe, I think I would have done stuff with my life that I would have regretted today.”

When she turned 18 she was transferred to the Viking Lodge direct provision centre on Francis Street in Dublin. As an asylum seeker, she was not entitled to free third-level education when she completed her Leaving Cert. However, her social worker introduced her to the Dún Laoghaire Refugee Project, where she successfully applied for funding to study a diploma in business. She later received One Foundation funding to study a degree in entrepreneurship at the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

Meanwhile she and her brother were still waiting for news on their application for refugee status and were determined not to lose hope after the siblings’ first application was rejected in 2009.

“You pray, ‘God, please do not let me spend another Christmas [in direct provision]’. There were so many times I wanted to give up. Even when I was going to college I was like, what’s the point? You’ve got low self-esteem, you have no hope of becoming anybody or doing anything.”

“You start making plans – I’m gonna travel, I’m gonna go to university, I’m gonna start working – but then you come back to reality and the next morning you go downstairs again to check if there’s a brown envelope.”

The envelope arrives

One morning in 2013 the brown envelope finally turned up. Camara was preparing for a meeting at the Irish Refugee Council when her brother appeared at the bedroom door, grinning from ear to ear.

"I couldn't believe it. I don't know whether I laughed or whether I fell to my knees. It was as if we'd been stuck in a hole and then they showed us the light and it was like, 'I can dream again'." The siblings looked for a place to live together but they could not find a suitable apartment. She now lives in Castleknock and her brother is in Phibsborough.

As well as speaking fluent French, Mandinka and now English, Camara has also learned Lingala – a Congolese language – since moving to Ireland and she works for a translation agency in Dublin.

“It’s hard sometimes listening to people’s stories and what they’ve been through. There’s a positive and a negative side but it’s about trying to be professional and not shed a tear when someone is talking about mental illness or something you’ve never come across before. Sometimes you just want to hug the person, but you can’t.”

She still struggles to talk about her reasons for leaving family and friends in Guinea. “I’ve been able to block those memories. If I don’t I’ll get stuck and won’t be able to move on . . . I do the best I can.”

She hopes to work with people in direct provision centres in the future to talk about the educational opportunities she was given while seeking asylum. “I want them to know that even if you haven’t got your status yet you can’t just sit there.

“No matter what, it’s possible. Today, I can hope again, I can dream again. I can have feelings about the future and say to myself yes, you can do this.”

• We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland in the past five years. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com. @newtotheparish