Sisterhood sings

Sisterhood sings in Linenhall


“I FEEL like a bird in a cage, with broken wings. I feel I am in an open prison, though with no bars.”
These words are not the lyrics of a song. Neither are they a verse from a poem. Rather, they are a description of how a young mother feels day after day. She lives in County Mayo and is a medical doctor.
Last Friday afternoon, along with a number of other women, she addressed an audience in the Linenhall Arts Centre to mark International Women’s Day.
 “I am a Nigerian woman, who lives in a Direct Provision Hostel, with my husband and kids. I have earned €19.10 since I moved there some years ago. This is below the poverty line. My children get no child benefit and I am prevented from working by the laws of Ireland, even though I am a qualified medical doctor. Integration is an uphill battle. I am institutionalised and I’m losing all my personal and professional skills. I am still hopeful that the better and safer life I came to seek in Ireland as a young woman of 27 years will start some day soon. Hope is all that keeps me going. One day this wounded bird will fly again.” 
Like the other asylum-seekers who spoke at the gathering, this woman did not want to be identified in this article. Clearly, fear and paranoia are endemic to the often dehumanising and protracted process. Sadly, the easy happiness and beaming smiles they all portrayed as they sang a medley of upbeat African chants afterwards firmly disguised the frustration and desperation of their circumstances.
“International Women’s Day is a day where we, as women, can take time to reflect on the achievements of women over the years, particularly ordinary women in their everyday lives and to reflect about the situation of women today in the world and the many challenges that face us,” said Thérese Ruane of Mayo Intercultural Action (MIA).
The group co-organised the Speak Out event with Mayo Rape Crisis Centre (MRCC).
“Ethnic minority women, including Irish Travellers, are often doubly oppressed and face discrimination at two levels – on the basis of their gender and on the basis of being a member of an ethnic minority community,” said Ms Ruane.
She also highlighted the fact that at any one time, one in four women in County Mayo are in danger of being domestically abused, while millions of women continue to be subjected to the horrific practise of female genital mutilation in certain countries.
Other speakers at the event included a young Traveller woman, who talked of her efforts to be educated while living on the roadside; a woman from Burundi who lost three of her children in 1995 and only discovered they were alive last year; a a victim of domestic violence who urged that ‘all walls, hiding domestic violence, should be smashed to the ground’.
Before the singing started, Loretta McDonagh, a counsellor with MRCC, read from Maya Angelou’s ‘A Prayer’:

“For those who have no voice,
we ask you to speak.
For those who feel unworthy,
we ask you to pour your love
out in waterfalls of tenderness.
For those who live in pain,
we ask you to bathe them
in the river of your healing.
For those who are lonely,
we ask you to keep them
company.
For those who are depressed,
we ask you to shower upon them
the light of hope.”