Éire2023-03-21T16:36:26+00:00

CualaÉIRE

The Workshops will take place on Zoom.

If you would like to attend the workshops please email contact@cualafoundation.com and we will send you a link for each of the 3 workshops on the afternoon that they will occur.

Empowering Asylum Seekers Adapting to Life in Ireland

Educational Workshops

Introduction to Irish Culture

with Susan McKeown and special guests

• Wednesday 22 March 8-9:15PM •

Ask Your Asylum Questions**

with Lucky Khambule (MASI), Susan McKeown and Niloufar Omidi

• Wednesday 29 March February 8-9:15PM •

**Email your anonymous questions in advance to: contact@cualafoundation.com

Wellbeing: How to cope with fear, anxiety, depression, bullying and more

with Lucky Khambule, Susan McKeown, Ejiro Ogbevoen, and Niloufar Omidi

• Wednesday 5 April 8-9:15PM •

The Booley Project

Seeking asylum seeker artists aged 19-26 (musicians, poets, writers, storytellers, dancers, activists, filmmakers, craftspeople, etc.) to participate in The Booley Project.

The Booley Project is designed to empower asylum seekers aged 19-26 to build community, develop skills and engage with Irish communities. Through a series of facilitated workshops we will work to develop a series of cultural projects in small groups. You, the participants, will choose the medium (song/music/poetry/film/art/ movement – or a combination) and engage in a creative process to tell a story or produce work on a theme. Upon completion each group will present their finished work to their peer groups at an all-day conference in Dublin. Then in summer we will travel to day-long cultural exchanges with host communities in Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry and Cork. Upon completion of the project participants will receive a stipend, travel expenses and a certificate.

For more information email: contact@cualafoundation.com

Afghan Dreamers
Cuala Foundation was fortunate to be able to secure special refugee visas to Ireland for Lida Azizi, Fatemah Qaderyan, Kawsar Roshan, Maryam Roshan & Iqbal Kakar when the group fled Afghanistan for Pakistan in July 2021.

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Photos by Michael Mundy and Patrick Lynch

Lida, Fatemah & Kawsar are the original members of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team known as the Afghan Dreamers who have traveled the world and are now pursuing their academic careers in university in Dublin.

Afghan Dreamers Website
Inchicore Stories
In December 2021 we launched ‘Inchicore Stories’ a Community Folklore Project in Dublin 8/12 led by folklorist Tadhg Carey. a group of trainee folklorists will be collecting community stories that will be made into a podcast that we look forward to sharing with the community in the coming months.
Photos by Michael Mundy and Patrick Lynch
Listen to the Podcast

Lúnasa Celebration of Sean Scully’s Return to Inchicore
A Community Celebration in Inchicore on Thursday 1 August at 3:30PM will honour the internationally acclaimed New York-based Irish artist SEAN SCULLY, who is from Inchicore and is coming home for the event. It will begin with the dedication of a plaque on the house near the junction of Spa Road and Thomas Davis Street West where Sean started his life, followed by events at Richmond Barracks that will include a talk that Sean will give for the youth of the area.

The event, hosted by Cuala Foundation, will mark the culmination of the ‘Culture Warriors’ programme the organisation has conducted this summer in collaboration with CORE Youth Service, the young participants taking inspiration from Scully’s work and career with talks and workshops (see video of their visit to the Hugh Lane Gallery to see Sean’s paintings).

It is the first plaque of Cuala Foundation’s Living History Plaques project that honours ‘Culture Warriors’ within their communities as part of Cuala’s work with youth and communities to cultivate a culture of belonging by connecting youth more deeply with their local culture and community history.

When Sean was born his family stayed for a time with relations who lived in the house where the plaque will be mounted. From there the family lived in a number of other places in Dublin throughout SCULLY’S early childhood, including staying with the Traveller community who lived on the big field in Inchicore.

Today SCULLY is considered a leading artist of his generation; he exhibits in museums all over the globe and his work is held in major collections, both private and public, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin.

Partners: CORE Youth Service, St. Michael’s Family Resource Centre

Photos by Michael Mundy and Patrick Lynch

Photos by Michael Mundy and Patrick Lynch

Culture Warriors 2019
Cuala’s CULTURE WARRIORS program in Ireland brings together youth in three communities: inner city Dublin, where generations of deprivation led to poverty, addiction, exclusion and low aspirations; refugees and asylum seekers in the border county of Monaghan, where 80% of youth leaving for college never come home; and Donegal’s indigenous Travellers, the community that has Ireland’s highest rates of suicide and incarceration.

Cuala Express Yourself 2018
Express Yourself is a strengths-based collaborative development program that encourages participants to consider their individual wellbeing in the context of community history and women’s stories. It includes activities that promote a healthier lifestyle through developing a greater awareness of self and spiritual knowledge. Our international facilitation team conducted projects in Ireland in 2018 with Rialto Youth Project, Donegal Travellers Project, and Monaghan Integrated Development.

With the participants of Rialto Youth Project we made a film about Rialto community history dating back to when it was called Sacred Place, which is the name of the film we made together.

With young women and men and girls and boys, refugees and asylum seekers who are living in Direct Provision and immigrants living in Monaghan we learned about Monaghan’s ancient history and made a film called Land of the Little Hills that tells the magical story of the first people who came to Ireland woven with stories of what life is like for young people in Monaghan today.

The young women of Donegal Travellers Project are creative, musical and passionate about Traveller culture and social justice. Together we wrote what we believe is the first collaborative song/spoken word piece written by a group of young Traveller women and the girls’ voices recite the lyrics in our film Traveller Genes.

Cuala Club at IBCAT 2018
From January through June 2018 Cuala Culture Club rain most Friday afternoons at Inchicore Bluebell Community Addiction Team (IBCAT) at Kavanagh House in inner city Dublin with children aged 8-13. Some of the children are from the Traveller community. Together we learned about community history and made a film called Island of Sheep, which is what Inchicore means.

Erasmus+ Multicultural Art Italy 2017
Youth from Sallynoggin and Ballybrack travelled to Florence as part of a Cuala Erasmus+ Multicultural Art program and engaged in a week of creative activities with youth from Liverpool. Romania, Spain and Italy that culminated with an exhibition and creative activities at Piazza Santo Spirito in Fierenze to raise awareness about the challenges faced by refugees and asylum seekers in Europe.

Cuala Club Dun Laoghaire
In collaboration with Crosscare we ran a summer project with youth from Ballybrack and Sallynoggin who learned about community history and completed research projects about addiction and animal welfare.

CualaÉire Dublin City Hall 2016
Songwriters and spoken word artists performed at an evening of new voices at Dublin’s City Hall.