Search Results for 'Africa'

HER SURNAMES are Irish, her parentage is Afro-Carribean, she grew up with Seventh Day Adventists, and she is an LGBT writer; Yrsa Daley-Ward is a one-woman rainbow coalition. This month, Cúirt audiences can savour her exhilaratingly raw and sensual writing when she reads at the Town Hall Theatre.

The rise of the alt.right across Europe, the election of Donald J Trump as US president, Britain triggering Article 50 and Brexit really getting under way - all of which must be particularly exciting from Vladimir Putin’s perspective - has led Insider to ask, what really is the case with the European Union and Ireland?

Renowned charity fundraiser Ronan Scully will put his best foot forward along with family, friends, and colleagues as he celebrates his 50th birthday next week by walking across Ireland for charity. He will also be joined and supported/sponsored by Paul Galvin and his staff from Galvin’s Menswear shop in Tullamore, Co Offaly; Richard Donovan of the North Pole Marathon and Global Running Adventures, based in Galway; and Eamon Victory of Centra Shop, Dunleer, Co Louth.

It seems like an age since we had two consecutive dry days with blue skies and of course, the sun shining for more than a few minutes at a time. We all need a holiday to get away from the harsh Irish climate in order to relax and restock our vitamin D reserves.

Asylum seekers and their children have spent years living in an institutional setting that was designed as a short-term solution. They are accommodated by the State in residential institutions, under a reception system known as Direct Provision. Direct Provision is intended to provide for the welfare of asylum seekers and their families as they await decisions on their asylum application. It ‘directly provides’ essential services, medical care, accommodation, and board with three meals a day provided at set times. When the the system was established in 2000, it was described as an interim solution to the high numbers of asylum seekers entering the State in search of protection, and the growing concerns about the risk of homelessness for that population. More than 15 years later, little has changed in the physical conditions, supports, or treatment of asylum seekers while they remain in these centres.

It is FA Cup quarter-final weekend which means there are only four matches in the Premier League.

GALWAY THEATRE-goers are in for a treat next weekend at the Town Hall with two performances of the achingly funny and touching drama, My Real Life, written by Eoin Colfer and performed by Don Wycherley.

Ronan Scully, winner of Operation Transformation in 2011 and well known for his fundraising work with Gorta Self Help Africa, is undertaking a Camino de Santiago walk this summer to raise much needed funds to address hunger in communities across Africa supported by the charity. Mr Scully is looking for volunteers to join him on the walk.

January saw plenty of Premier League action with five game weeks in play and Fantasy Football managers just loved it as their teams garnered point after point.

The biggest humanitarian crisis since the aftermath of World War Two has led to an exodus of five million people from Syria since 2012. In an effort to help refugees living within the Middle East, a small number of individuals from Galway in February 2016 became part of an ambitious digital learning programme designed to bring computer coding skills to thousands of children, teenagers and teachers living in camps and districts across the region. Known as Refugee Code Week (RCW) the initiative, led by the German software corporation SAP in partnership with the United Nations Refugee Agency(UNHCR) and the Galway Education Centre, has developed course content and provided teams of IT volunteers from across three continents to upskill teachers from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries in delivering coding programmes to young refugees and the youth of host nations from eight years to twenty years of age. The Galway volunteers taking part in the programme are Bernard Kirk, director of the Galway Education Centre and co-founder of RCW, Nuala Allen (SAP in Parkmore), Niall McCormick (Colmac Robotics) and Brendan Smith (NUI Galway). BRENDAN SMITH, who has through his Outreach projects at the university since 2004 worked with asylum seekers in Ireland, was seconded from the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at NUI Galway to become a master instructor in RCW as well as in a sister programme, namely the highly successful Africa Code Week that has been operating since June 2015. Here is his story.